Taylor Jenkins Reid

I once thought that grief was chronic, that all you could do was appreciate the good days and take them along with the bad. And then I started to think that maybe the good days aren't just days; maybe the good days can be good weeks, good months, good years. Now I wonder if grief isn't something like a shell. You wear it for a long time and then one day you realize you've outgrown it. So you put it down.

You start to understand that grief is chronic. That it's more about remission and relapse than it is about a cure. What that means to you is that you can't simply wait for it to be over. You have to move through it, like swimming in an undertow.

I find myself smiling, finally. I guess I do remember how to do it. You just turn the corners of your mouth up.

Hollow and empty are terrible ways to feel when you're used to being full of joy. But it's not so bad when you're used to feeling full of pain. Hollow feels okay. Empty feels like a beginning. Which is nice, because for so long you have felt like you were at the end.

Sweetheart, I__ telling you, you love someone like that, you love them the right way, and no time would be enough. Doesn__ matter if you had thirty years,_ she tells me. __t wouldn__ be enough.

When you lose someone you love, it's hard to imagine that you'll ever feel better. That, one day, you'll manage to be in a good mood simply because the weather is nice or the barista at the coffee shop on the corner remembered your order. But it does happen. If you're patient and you work at it.

It doesn't matter if we don't mean to do the things we do. It doesn't mean if it was an accident or a mistake. It doesn't even matter if we think this is all up to fate. Because regardless of our destiny, we still have to answer for our actions. We make choices, big and small, every day of our lives, and those choices have consequences.

From experience, I can tell you that if you go around trying to figure out what's fair in life or whether you deserve something or not, that's a rabbit hole that is hard to climb out of.

Fate or not, our lives are still the results of our choices.

What's the rush, honey? We have all the time in the world.

When you dig just the tiniest bit beneath the surface, everyone's love life is original and interesting and nuanced and defies any easy definition.

Heartbreak is a loss. Divorce is a piece of paper.

And here__ why it worked: man or woman, gay, straight, bisexual, you name it, we all just want to be teased.

I think I was just overly excitable about it because I loved him in a way I'd never thought possible. I knew that if I lost him, if I had to live without him, it would crush me. I needed him and I didn't just need him now, I needed him in the future. I needed him always. I wanted him always. I wanted him to be the father of my children. It's such a silly statement now; people say it all the time, they throw it around like it's nothing. And some people treat it like it is nothing, but it wasn't nothing to me. I wanted to have children with him someday. I wanted to be a parent with him. I wanted to have a child that was half him and half me. I wanted to commit to him and sacrifice for him. I wanted to lose part of myself in order to gain some of him. I wanted to marry him. So I wanted him to have meant it. I wanted it to be real.

What__ that saying? Behind every gorgeous woman, there__ a man sick of screwing her? Well, it works both ways. No one mentions that part.

Sometimes divorce isn__ an earth-shattering loss. Sometimes it__ just two people waking up out of a fog.

Why have I spent so long settling for less when I know damn well the world expects more?

I put my back against the wall. I slide down to the floor. I imagine Ryan sitting next to me. I imagine him rubbing my back, the way he did when my grandfather died. I imagine him saying, "She's going to a better place. She's OK." I imagine the way my grandfather might have done this for my grandmother when she lost her own mom or her own grandmother. I imagine my grandmother sitting where I am now, my grandfather kneeling beside her, telling her all the things I want to be told. Holding her the way that only someone in particular can hold you. When I'm her age, when I'm lying in a hospital bed, ready to die, whom will I be thinking of?It's Ryan. It's always been Ryan. Just because I can live without him doesn't mean I want to.And I don't. I don't want to. I want to hear his voice. The way it is rough but sometimes smooth and almost soulful. I want to see his face, with his stubble from never shaving down to the skin. I want to smell him again. I want to hold the roughness of his hands. I want to feel the way they envelop mine, dwarfing them, making me feel small.I need my husband.