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Any woman who spent her formative years surrounded only by other girls will tell you the same thing: you never really shake off the idea that boys are the most fascinating, beguiling, repulsive, bizarre creatures to roam the earth; as dangerous and mythological as
A breakup will never be as hard as the first one. You’ll float around aimlessly in the months afterward, feeling as lost and confused as a child, questioning all the things you knew to be true and contemplating all the things you have to relearn.
You’ll feel settled, centered, and calm when you fall in love with the right man.
A good friend will always put you before a man.
The love we have for each other stays the same, but the format, the tone, the regularity, and the intimacy of our friendship will change forever.
If a man loves you because you are thin, he’s no man at all.
“That’s the only reason people gossip. I obviously did it to feel powerful.” “Yes, you did,” she said with the slight smile she reserved for when she was pleased I had gotten there before she did. “It’s putting other people down so you could feel big.” “Yes, I suppose it is.” “Do you know who else does that?” There was a pause. “Donald Trump.”
Because I am enough. My heart is enough. The stories and the sentences twisting around my mind are enough. I am fizzing and frothing and buzzing and exploding. I’m bubbling over and burning up. My early-morning walks and my late-night baths are enough. My loud laugh at the pub is enough. My piercing whistle, my singing in the shower, my double-jointed toes are enough. I am a just-pulled pint with a good, frothy head on it. I am my own universe; a galaxy; a solar system. I am the warm-up act, the main event, and the backing singers.
Life is a difficult, hard, sad, unreasonable, irrational thing. So little of it makes sense. So much of it is unfair. And a lot of it simply boils down to the unsatisfying formula of good and bad luck. Life is a wonderful, mesmerizing, magical, fun, silly thing. And humans are astounding. We all know we’re going to die, and yet we still live. We shout and curse and care when the full bin bag breaks, yet with every minute that passes we edge closer to the end. We marvel at a nectarine sunset over the M25 or the smell of a baby’s head or the efficiency of flat-pack furniture, even though we know
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Things will change more radically than you could ever imagine. Things will end up 300 miles north of your wildest predictions. Healthy people drop dead in supermarket queues. The future love of your life could be the man sitting next to you on the bus. Your secondary school math teacher and rugby coach might now go by the name of Susan. Everything will change. And it could happen any morning.
Nearly everything I know about love, I’ve learned in my long-term friendships with women.
know that love happens under the splendor of moon and stars and fireworks and sunsets but it also happens when you’re lying on blow-up air beds in a childhood bedroom, sitting in the emergency room or in the queue for a passport or in a traffic jam. Love is a quiet, reassuring, relaxing, pottering, pedantic, harmonious hum of a thing; something you can easily forget is there, even though its palms are outstretched beneath you in case you fall.
More often than not, the love someone gives you will be a reflection of the love you give yourself. If you can’t treat yourself with kindness, care, and patience, chances are someone else won’t either.
Be endlessly wary of someone who is intent on looking after you all the time. Be endlessly wary of someone who needs looking after all the time.
When you’re looking for love and it seems like you might not ever find it, remember you probably have access to an abundance of it already, just not the romantic kind. This kind of love might not kiss you in the rain or propose marriage. But it will listen to you, inspire and restore you. It will hold you when you cry, celebrate when you’re happy, and sing All Saints with you when you’re drunk. You have so much to gain and learn from this kind of love. You can carry it with you forever. Keep it as close to you as you can.
