A Thousand Letters (The Austens #2)
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Read between October 28 - October 28, 2022
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She was all I'd ever wanted, and she was here, right here. All I had to do was reach out and touch her. All I had to do was ask.
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And I found myself in the dark, found her in the dark. I found light and truth in the darkness, hiding there where I couldn't see, right in front of me the whole time. And all I had to do was reach out and touch her.
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I was whole again in his arms.
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The wind That blows across the chasm Between us Pierces my soul.
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With an ocean between you and years gone by? How will you manage with her right there in front of you?"
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I wished it could have been me. But I'd ruined my chances with her years ago, and I of all people knew that there was no way to go back.
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"He punishes himself by pushing you away. It's easier to believe he can't have you, easier to think you're out of reach, because if he can have you, he'll have to deal with his regrets, his mistakes. He'll have to deal with his grief."
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You are loved and cared for, with or without me. So please, don't break or bend. Don't crumble and fall. Stand up tall and face the sun and remember me."
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So simple: Breathe in, breathe out, The motion never considered Until it's gone.
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"Life is short, so short, so precious, every minute, every day. Don't let the people you love, the people who make you happy, the people who bring you joy — don't let them go. Hang on to them, even when it hurts. When it seems impossible. Hold on to the things that breathe life into you. Listen to your soul and honor what it tells you. Live. Fight for what you love. Because one day, you'll be where I am, and in that moment I want you to look back gladly, with no regrets."
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Wandering voices in the air And murmurs in the wold Speak what I cannot declare, Yet cannot all withhold.
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But the meanings cleave to the lake, Cannot be carried in book or urn; Go thy ways now, come later back, On waves and hedges still they burn.
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These the fates of men forecast, Of better men than live to-day; If who can read them comes at last He will spell in the sculpture, 'Stay.'
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Like boiling water, Scalding, churning, Steam slipping silently Up and up, And when it vanishes I watch, wondrous, Disbelieving That it had ever been real.
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Broken. Broken and sorry. He'd flung away the no, the why, stripped his soul bare, and what he was, what was left was the truth: he was broken, maybe irreparably. But I could be what healed him, mended him.
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It was why he came here, I knew, and selflessly, this was what I wanted, for him to be whole again. Selfishly, I wanted nothing but him, only him, broken or whole. Anything was better than nothing at all.
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I could heal him, but he would ruin me.
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The page is blank Like new fallen snow, As is my heart, As is my soul.
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To live Is to feel So you know You are real.
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The world seemed to be bleak, quiet and empty, the sky shrouded in miles of fog that signaled snow. It made me feel small, a miniature in a world of miniatures.
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how could I tell him the truth? How could I tell him that my life, my heart would never be the same? How could I tell him my soul had been shredded and thrown to the wind?
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"I'm here. I'm always here."
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I was a slave to my hope.
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Life is a walk, A very long walk That begins with a crawl, A toddle and tumble. But we walk on, Sometimes to trip or fall, Sometimes to run and laugh Throwing our faces up to the sky And our voices to the wind.
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Friends come and go Through the very long walk, Our paths meeting, Sometimes parting, Sometimes meeting again, Sometimes not.
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But we weather the days we have Finding comfort and joy In togetherness.
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When we meet the one, The one to walk with us, The one to hold our hand, The one whose arms we fill When the nights are cold, The one to comfort When their tears fall, Trail of diamonds On a porcelain cheek. This is when we feel The value of our lives.
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We walk through the spring, Our eyes on the long blades of grass Reaching for the sun The smell of life and beginnings Filling up our souls;
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The days of spring and life gone The quiet deafening, a fog with no edges But still we hold hands: it vanquishes our fear.
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And when our walk is done, The miles behind us, A trail of footprints Converging, parting;
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When we look behind us At all that has passed, The ones we love, What we leave behind, What we cherish, Is what makes our lives Worth living.
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Nothing made sense. Not the things I wanted. Not the things I'd lost. Not the moment I found myself in or the moments to come. Not my uniform, scratching at my neck like a noose, and not the hard pew under me where hundreds of people had sat, saying goodbye to someone they loved for the last time.
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The quiet point Of impact, The sooty blankness, Tells tale of all That was lost.
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At the edge Of no more Is where we find Our truth.
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I contain multitudes,
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"What you've done is inexcusable. There's nothing you can say to me that will change that, no explanation that will make it all right. You left when we needed you the most. Why you left doesn't matter."
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"You should have been able to hold it together long enough to be there. To be present. You can't ever get that back, that time, those moments. Life is hard. We have to stand up and live it anyway."
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But I'd already bent as far as I could go.
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Displaced by the weight, The excess of what we believed Spilling over curling edges, Kissing the floor sweetly As it crawls away, Lost to the cracks, And gone.
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There was nowhere to go but home.
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"You've got to own up. You've got to be honest with yourself and with the people you love. You've got to apologize and make amends."
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"You're so busted up inside, and still you keep smashing the bits with a bat as penance. To make yourself pay over and over again when all you need is forgiveness. Forgiveness that they'll give you, if you'll only ask for it."
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The truth lies Still and quiet, Waiting for the moment It finds its voice.
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make excuses for everyone who hurts me, bend and bend under everyone else's weight."
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Revelations Begin and end With the truth.
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Life is fluid — sometimes with cresting, white-capped waves, other times with an eerie stillness, a quiet surface. But it was never the same, day to day. And as sure as one day was up, the next may be down. Letting yourself ride the surface instead of kicking and fighting or sinking to the bottom like a stone was the only way to survive intact.
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Love is a line Spanning the distance Between two hearts.
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"I think that every day the answer to that question is different. Some days the loss is as fresh as the day the love left. Some days, you can breathe, not think of it for a stretch, sometimes just for an hour or a few minutes, sometimes for days. Sometimes you'll go a day or a week without breathing once because the loss is suffocating.
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It takes different faces: anger, hurt, longing. Sometimes it's bittersweet joy, because for a moment, you had it all. I want to tell you the pain gets easier, but it doesn't. You only learn to bear it. But there's comfort in knowing you loved and were loved in return, even though it's no consolation. Only a truth you carry around with you forever."
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"There is no length to love; it's infinite. It lives in you always. Hold on to it." "But it hurts," she sobbed. "That's how you know it was real."