Rock Paper Scissors

by Alice Feeney

To have wasted so much of our lives by not really living them, makes me feel so sad.

Time can change relationships like the sea reshapes the sand.

All people are addicts, and all addicts desire the same thing: an escape from reality.

But I’ve learned to live with it. Like we all do when life deals us a less than perfect hand.

I think I’ve learned to live with a less than perfect marriage, too. But doesn’t everyone? I’m not being defeatist, just honest. Isn’t that what successful relationships are really about? Compromise? Is any marriage really perfect?

My work makes me feel young, but my wife makes me feel old.

Most people can see the writing on the wall, even if they can’t always read what it says.

I doubt he felt the same way, but feelings don’t have to be mutual to be real.

why people only learn to live in the moment when the moment has passed.

Enjoy the stories of other people’s lives, but don’t forget to live your own.

But marriage changes people whether they like it or not. You can’t unbreak an egg when you’ve already whisked it into an omelette.

That’s why I am emotionally bankrupt these days—any love I had left for her is spent.

promises lose their value when broken or chipped, like dusty, forgotten antiques.

I secretly crush them and put them in her tea. She’s a very anxious individual. It’s for her own good.

the most any sane individual should do is promise to try.

reinforced the importance of not trusting anyone except herself. The best lessons are often the ones we don’t realize we’re being taught.

Too many people think the world owes them something, and blame others for their own poor life choices.

The reason why a person lies is almost always more interesting than the lie itself.

Trust can’t be borrowed; if you take it away, you can’t give it back.

There are residents in our lives, the ones who stay for years, and then there are the tourists just passing through. Sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference. We can’t, and don’t, and shouldn’t try to hold on to everyone that we meet, and I’ve met a lot of tourists in my life, people I should have kept at a safe distance.

Few people are genuinely capable of forgiveness, and nobody ever really forgets. Sometimes you just know a person is bad news as soon as you meet them,

But if there’s one thing I have learned from life as well as fiction, it’s that nobody is ever just a hero or just a villain. We all have it in us to be both.”

The only people with no regrets are liars.