Heaven Adjacent

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

You can put any kind of judgment you want on the way you feel, but that won’t make it go away. Unfortunately you can’t insult your feelings out of existence. Trust me. People try all the time. If it worked, we’d know about it by now.”

It’s hard to find a particular place when you don’t one hundred percent know you’re even looking for it,

There’s a reason people will always let you down. It’s because they came to this weird planet to live their own lives. Not anybody else’s. Classic case of needs in conflict.

People come into our lives, she thought, and it’s not always a forever kind of thing, and not always meant to be. Not every deal is for keeps.

“I’m starting to see that we make choices at an early age,” Roseanna continued, “when we’re too young to know what will make us happy. But they’re more or less permanent choices. They don’t have to be, I guess. But somehow we end up thinking they have to be. It’s hard to make a change after so many years, and we don’t want to let people down by breaking our promises.

We blame them for the fact that we’re not happy. Because that’s easier than blaming ourselves. Because if we blame ourselves, then we have to fix it, and that’s a tricky thing.”

Other than a meal, I haven’t made a lot of tangible things in my life. I guess I like it because it’s hard. I have to struggle for it. But then, when it’s done, I feel good about what I did. I feel gratified. And the fact that it was difficult makes it even better.”

I’m going to die. We all are. And we all know it. We like to think it’s eons in the future, but we could walk out in front of a truck tomorrow. Hell, today. And we all know that, too. But we waste our precious time. Why? Why do we live like we’re not going to die?”

“I’m beginning to think that’s the reason we’re all down here on this planet together. To try to make things a little easier for each other. Why else would we interact with people at all?

I like the world with all its faults. It was an honor to have a place in it. But going where Nan went is an appealing option, too. Whatever fate has for me will be all right.”

“Relationships are never a done deal,” Neal said. “There’s always hard work involved.”