When We Left Cuba

by Chanel Cleeton

“Beautiful” never quite matches up to the other things you could be: smart, interesting, brave.

“He’s an American politician,” Eduardo counters. “How innocent can he possibly be? The Americans have unclean hands in all of this.

It’s different going to a place and fighting, seeing the destruction men can wreak all around you, and then returning home, to the sanctuary of a country that will likely never descend into such madness. Harder to live it in your favorite haunts, to watch death touch your friends and family. And still, war is war and misery comes to all men, natives and foreigners alike.

“Perhaps we’re foolish to put all of our faith in the Americans.

“The only way to stop being afraid of something is to confront it. To take away its power over you.”

If I’m going to have regrets in this life, I’d rather them be for the chances I took and not the opportunities I let slip away.

The thing about hope is that when it fills you, when you hold it in the palm of your hand, the promise of it is everything. You can go for days, weeks, months, years on that hope, telling yourself everything will be fine, eventually, you’ll have what you’ve been waiting for, this is just a momentary setback in your life, one you will overcome. After all, if there isn’t a happy ending at the end of the story, what is the purpose of all of it? Hope is such a beautiful lie.

Victories aren’t nearly as fun without the right person to celebrate with,

She’s never taken much stock in those ridiculous articles advising women to “dress their age.” Everyone knows a woman should dress as she damned well pleases.

If I’ve learned anything at this point, it’s that life comes down to timing. Things happen the way they are supposed to, the seemingly insignificant moments stringing together to lead you down a path you never imagined traversing, with a man you can’t let go of and you can’t keep.

Love ebbs and flows, a low-level hum in the background, but anger sinks its claws in you and refuses to let go.

When I was a child, I believed if you wanted something badly enough, if you worked hard enough for it, if you pushed your way past the obstacles presented to you, well, it would be yours. But now I’m learning it’s not simply a matter of will or desire; some things are perpetually out of our reach, and no matter how badly we wish it were otherwise, there are some battles whose outcomes are decided not in our hands, but in the stars.

In the end, life always comes down to timing.

Dreams never die all at once. They die in pieces, floating a little farther and farther away each day.

It is supremely unfair, of course, but if she has learned anything during her time on earth, it is that life is rarely fair. It simply is.

time is a luxury—yes. But like so many other luxuries in life, it is best savored rather than gorged,

“Forget etiquette. If you can’t do what you want on your birthday, then what’s the point? Besides, one of the benefits of being old is that the rules can hang.