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It’s about human nature, you see. You can live for a long time inside the shell you were born in. But one day it’ll become too small.” “Then what?” I ask. “Well, then you’ll have to find a larger shell to live in.” I consider this for a moment. “What if it’s too small but you still want to live there?” She sighs. “Gracious, child, what a question. I suppose you’ll either have to be brave and find a new home or you’ll have to live inside a broken shell.”
the places we go in our minds to find comfort have little to do with where our bodies go.
I READ ONCE that the act of observing changes the nature of what is observed.
Your father must have felt he had to forge his own path, even if it meant cutting ties to his family. It’s brave to resist the pull of the familiar. To be selfish about your own needs. I wrestle with that every day.”
It feels as if my life is moving forward at two separate speeds, one at the usual pace, with its predictable rhythms and familiar inhabitants, and the other rushing ahead, a blur of color and sound and sensation. It’s clear to me now that for twenty years I have gone through the motions of each day like a dumb animal, neither daring to hope for a different kind of life nor even knowing enough to desire one.
I remember a story I read once about a woman who goes mad trapped inside her house and comes to believe that she lives behind the wallpaper. I am beginning to wonder if I will stay in this house forever, creeping up and down the stairs like the woman in that story.
Nothing will ever get better. It will only get worse.
Do our natures dictate the choices we make, I wonder, or do we choose to live a certain way because of circumstances beyond our control?
The older I get, the more I believe that the greatest kindness is acceptance.
I think, again, of my mother opening her front door to a Swedish sailor, the stuff of fairy tales: Rapunzel letting down her hair, Cinderella sliding her foot into the glass slipper, Sleeping Beauty awaiting a kiss. All were given one chance to step into a happily ever after—or at least it must’ve seemed that way. But was it the prince who attracted them, or merely the opportunity for escape?
In my own grief and panic, I denied him the respect he has always given me. What right did I have to deny him his one chance for love?
I think of what Mamey told me long ago: there are many ways to love and be loved. Too bad it’s taken most of a lifetime for me to understand what that means.
What she wants most—what she truly yearns for—is what any of us want: to be seen. And look. She is.
