There's No Coming Back from This

by Ann Garvin

To be nobody-but-yourself—in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody but yourself—means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight and never stop fighting. —e. e. cummings

“Mental illness isn’t personal, it’s illness.”

It didn’t matter how far you’d come in the world of competency; women were always judged by their outward appearance.

The trick was to listen, support, and do no problem-solving until a solid problem was defined. Emotions were not to be solved.

I’m going to give up people pleasing if that’s okay with everyone.

You know, if you stood up for yourself like you do for everyone else, maybe I could respect you. I did put others first. I’d long known that if you focus on other people, you don’t have to figure out what you want. If you never ask anything for yourself, you’ll never discover who cares or, for that matter, doesn’t care.

Just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s wrong. And then, Just because it’s easy doesn’t make it right.

Women learn to be pleasing—often their lives and livelihoods depend on it.

There was so much to learn, and it occurred to me that the largest life lesson of all had to be answering the question of how much to give, how much to keep. How much do you matter versus how much do others count when trying to be a mother, friend, or good person?

Whatever all else comes and goes—memories, parents, houses, children—the truth I’m left with is this: I am mine. What if that was enough?