Where the Lost Wander

by Amy Harmon

“It is. It is the suffering of love. Every parent feels it. It is the suffering of being unable to shield or save. It is not love if it doesn’t hurt.”

“The pain. It’s worth it. The more you love, the more it hurts. But it’s worth it. It’s the only thing that is.”

I’m convinced everyone is a little vile, if they are honest about it. Vile and scared and human.

“Are you angry with the bird because he can fly, or angry with the horse for her beauty, or angry with the bear because he has fearsome teeth and claws? Because he’s bigger than you are? Stronger too? Destroying all the things you hate won’t change any of that. You still won’t be a bear or a bird or a horse. Hating men won’t make you a man. Hating your womb or your breasts or your own weakness won’t make those things go away. You’ll still be a woman.

Hating never fixed anything. It seems simple, but most things are. We just complicate them. We spend our lives complicating what we would do better to accept. Because in acceptance, we put our energies into transcendence.”

“Put your energy into rising above the things you can’t change, Naomi. Keep your mind right. And everything will work out for the best.”

“I’ve found that women can’t be trusted,” I say.

“And I’ve found that men are just frightened boys. God gave you stronger bodies to make up for your weaker spines.”

all I have is my will, then I must use it well.

It is impossible to explain to someone who is surrounded by their own language and people just how lonely it is to not understand and to not be understood.

“The hardest thing about life is knowing what matters and what doesn’t,” Winifred muses. “If nothing matters, then there’s no point. If everything matters, there’s no purpose. The trick is to find firm ground between the two ways of being.”

“That’s what marriage is. It’s shelter. It’s sustenance. It’s warmth. It’s finding rest in each other. It’s telling someone, You matter most. That’s what Naomi wants from you. And that’s what she wants to give you.”

It would have been easier to scratch and kick and bite. Believe me, I know. I spent the first fifteen years of my life fighting everything and everyone. But . . . endurance . . . is a whole different kind of battle. It’s a hell of a lot harder. Don’t ever say you didn’t fight, because that’s never been true.