More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
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.
always going to the cafe above Heal’s on Tottenham Court Road and ordering the same thing each time, two Caesar salads and a plate of chips to share.
“It may seem that life is difficult at times but it’s really as simple as breathing in and out,” she read. “Rip open hearts with your fury and tear down egos with your modesty. Be the person you wish you could be, not the person you feel you are doomed to be. Let yourself run away with your feelings. You were made so that someone could love you. Let them love you.”
“I don’t know. Maybe you just have an unfillable void,” he said with a gentle sigh. “Maybe no man will ever be able to fill it.” I looked above me at the same side of the moon we both gazed at and wished on a star that I would go to bed that night and forget what he had said.
“You can do long-term love. You’ve done it better than anyone I know.” “How? My longest relationship was two years and that was over when I was twenty-four.” “I’m talking about you and me,” she said.
don’t need to change my shape to make myself worthy of someone’s love. I don’t need any words or looks or comments from a man to believe I’m visible; to believe I’m here.
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.
And if this is it, if this is all there is—just me and the trees and the sky and the seas—I know now that that’s enough.
It’s completely OK to focus on yourself. You’re allowed to travel and live on your own and spend all your money on yourself and flirt with whoever you like and be as consumed with your work as you want. You don’t have to get married and you don’t have to have children. It doesn’t make you shallow if you don’t want to open up and share your life with a partner. But it’s also completely not OK to be in a relationship if you know that you want to be on your own.
And I know how liberating it feels to be loved and accepted with all my flaws in return
It’s introducing them to your colleagues at a work event and basking in pride as they make people laugh and make you look lovable just by dint of being loved by them.
Men aren’t bad, women aren’t good. People are people and we all make, allow, and enable mistakes.
That’s all I’ve ever wanted. Good humor and good friends. Wisdom and humility. Confidence. Bravery. An unlabored sense of self. So why was I freaking out now that I’d finally started making some of it real?
A much-underrated and incredibly simple considering factor when it comes to choosing a partner is how much you love their company.
