An Optimist's Guide to Heartbreak (Heartsong, #1)

by Jennifer Hartmann

Deceptive Cadence: When you think something is coming to an end, it’s actually the beginning of something beautiful.

The thing about me is I’ll often jump to the worst possible conclusion while simultaneously convincing myself that it’s totally fine if the make-believe disaster somehow comes to pass. It’s like I’m trying to get all my ducks in a row before chaos unleashes, so I’m prepared to march through the fire with a megawatt smile and bright-eyed ducks.

just mean…not everything that makes us hurt needs to be forgotten or banished. It hurts because it mattered. And things that mattered once, will always matter,”

“We need to find a way to carry those things with us in a positive way—instead of letting them bring us down, they should move us forward. Inspire us. Help us grow.”

This is a me thing. This is me grasping at straws when the straws are the cheaply-designed paper straws that instantly dissolve the moment they touch liquid. I have nothing to hold onto.

know that life’s truest treasures live inside the unexpected moments. The little curveballs that sweep us off our feet and steal our breath.

Loss gives the scatheless scars. Loss is a vitality sucker. People mostly just exist after loss and sometimes they don’t even realize it. They stop noticing when the leaves change. One day, those leaves are green and vibrant, drinking in the dayspring, and the next moment they’re rusty brown, and then they’re dead. And we don’t notice. Those leaves have always just looked dead.

Beautiful things never last, and that’s why fireflies flash. The tears hit me hard. A collision of love and loss—which is, ultimately, just a potent entanglement called grief.

It’s fascinating how two people burned from the same experience can come out on the other side with completely different scars.

What does it look like? What does happiness look like after inconceivable loss? It doesn’t look the same as it used to, that’s for sure.

Love can be a fulfilling, enchanting thing, but it can be a thief, too. It can drain you, suck you dry, strip you bare. I