Ben

“If you're in pitch blackness, all you can do is sit tight until your eyes get used to the dark”
― Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

“Nonstalgia (noun) The unsettling sensation that you are never be able to fully access the past; that once you are departed from an event, some essential quality of it is lost forever. A reminder to remember: just because the sharpness of the sadness has faded does not mean that it was not, once, terrible. It means only that time and space, creatures of infinite girth and tenderness, have stepped between the two of you, and they are keeping you safe as they were once unable to.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, In the Dream House

“And her joy would become a restless thing, flapping its wings inside her, as though looking for an opening to fly away.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah

“They say nothing lasts forever but they're just scared it will last longer than they can love it.”
― Ocean Vuong, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous