The Asylum Confessions: Family Matters (The Asylum Confession Files, #2)

by Jack Steen

“Turns out I was holding on to something that was never there.”

Girls are fanciful creatures. The thoughts and feelings they experience daily would be exhausting for us men.

Why can’t people just see you for who you are without trying to see something that ain’t, sorry, isn’t there?

One person's truth and the real truth are often two different things, have you ever noticed that? For some, their ability to lie is so commonplace that they fall into their own trap of believing the lie.

Just because someone looks innocent doesn’t mean they are. Looks are deceiving, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

"The only time you ever see a person's true character, who they really are, is right before they die. Anytime you judge a person before seeing their true self, you're robbing yourself of an opportunity.

“Oh honey, by the time you reach my age, all you’ll have done is say goodbye. Practice doesn’t make perfect. It never gets easy; you just learn to handle your grief better.”

It doesn't matter what you do with your life, it's how you do it. So even if your existence seems isolated and unadventurous, if you do well with the life you've been given, then it's well-lived.

Life is never that nice. Rarely are you given second chances, real second chances, but when you do, when they present themselves to you, you need to figure out if the strings attached are worth the price.

Everything, Jack, everything comes with a price.

It's similar to being a reader - that addictiveness you feel to get lost within the pages of a book, within the characters of a story. You still live, but through the experiences and words of others.

Never tell someone who grieves that their heart will heal.

Society today is so quick to condemn others, throw stones, and project our own fears onto others.

But you can’t look back on life and live on the ‘what ifs’. That’s not how life works. If you live with regrets, then you’re not truly living. You’re reacting in order to not live with more regrets. Don’t do that, Jack. Wake up each day determined to be the best person you can be. Go to sleep each night knowing you did the absolute best you could and that it’s too late to change actions you’ve already taken. Determine to be absolute in your decisions, and you’ll never experience a moment of regret. Regret can destroy dreams, did you know that? When all you do is focus on the things that went wrong in your life, you miss out on what could be happening, the good

things. That’s not a way to live. I tell my girls that downstairs all the time.

It’s why I hate listening to the news, even now. Every single story you hear, don’t take it as truth. It’s slanted toward a fact they want the public to believe. You always have to look beyond the words they are telling you and find the other side. There is always another side.

If you’re grieving, you need to let that grief sweep over you, wash you, as if you were a pebble of sand adrift along the shoreline. Eventually, the strength of the water will pull you in until you are surrounded, and the very grief you thought was drowning you is, instead, supporting you.

It’s incredible what surrendering does to a person. There’s a freedom in it, Jack. A freedom that you never expect.

It’s amazing the things we can get away with when we believe the lies we tell.

We all lie. Oh, come on, Jack. You know what I’m talking about: those little lies that we want others to believe to be the truth. You would call them little white lies, but they’re lies all the same. They’re not always life-altering things. Sometimes, it’s telling someone they have the most beautiful baby you’ve ever seen. Or pretending to be okay when in fact, you’re a mess inside. It can even be when you say I love you when really you hate the person.

Sometimes we never get the chance to properly say goodbye to someone. That’s just how life plays out, I guess.