You've Been So Lucky Already: A Memoir

by Alethea Black

You do not think about the one who wanted to own you and keep you in a little cage, who wanted you to give up your name—your father’s name—and take his name instead.

“If you dig deep enough, you’re always going to hit that sadness. That sadness is like the water table.”

It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.”

I don’t realize that, often, by the time you’re ready for something, you don’t need it

I believe the unmasked heart of the universe might exist in a movie somewhere; I just haven’t seen it yet.

it—there was that millisecond where my body forgot what my mind knew, and there I was, holding a beribboned box from my dad, a pleasantly hefty package, signed with his words, in his name, as if time were a lie and he was alive again.

THIS. So much THIS.

Symbolism is a luxury only afforded in retrospect.

there is one thing Jack Kerouac said that I’ll never forget: “Accept loss forever. Be submissive to everything, open, listening.” I accept. I submit. I listen.