#grief

(on grief) And you do come out of it, that’s true. After a year, after five. But you don’t come out of it like a train coming out of a tunnel, bursting through the downs into sunshine and that swift, rattling descent to the Channel; you come out of it as a gull comes out of an oil-slick. You are tarred and feathered for life. ↗

— Julian Barnes

#life

My life has become a dismal sigh fettered by pangs of grief and anguished weeping. ↗

— Richelle E. Goodrich

#discouragement #giving-up #grief #hopelessness #resignation

The wave is the signature of every experience of life. By understanding the nature of waves and their characteristics, and applying that understanding to our lives, we can navigate life with a little more grace. ↗

— Jeffrey R. Anderson

#life-experience #navigate #understanding #waves #waves-of-grief

I can't stop thinking about what he felt like against my body, against my lips. I can't remember anything else, anything before that. And I realize in this moment that I've finally done it. That horrible, awful thing I swore I would never do. The frosting. The cigarettes. The blue glass triangle. The shooting stars. The taste of his mouth on mine in the hall closet. Gone. All I can think about is Sam. Matt is – erased. My whole body is warm and buzzing. Sam is smiling next to me, because of me. And I've never felt so lonely in all my life. ↗

— Sarah Ockler

#grief #ya #life

He’d passed the longest night of his life locked in mortal combat with his ghosts, calling up and then disavowing twenty years of memories. He would banish that bitch from his heart if it meant cutting her out with his own dagger. And when at last he allowed himself to grieve, he did so silently and unwillingly, his tears hidden by the darkness, his rage congealing into a core of ice. ↗

— Sharon Kay Penman

#marriage #treason #life

I lost a child," she said, meeting Lusa's eyes directly. "I thought I wouldn't live through it. But you do. You learn to love the place somebody leaves behind for you. ↗

— Barbara Kingsolver

#loss #love

My heart was broken so badly last time that it still hurts. Isn't that crazy? To still have a broken heart almost two years after a love story ends?  ↗

— Elizabeth Gilbert

#heartbreak #love

A selfish person can still love someone else, can't they? Even when they've hurt them and let them down. ↗

— Rosamund Lupton

#guilt #self-realization #love

The fairest things have fleetest end, Their scent survives their close: But the rose's scent is bitterness To her who loved the rose. ↗

— Francis Thompson

#loss #yearning #love

It wasn't supposed to. It was just supposed to stop you from hurting yourself.” “It helps—” “No it doesn't. It just pushes it away temporarily. Just like the booze.” “But I need—” “You need to let yourself feel. Feel it, own it. Then move on.” “You make it sound so easy.” Bitterness drips from each syllable. “It’s not. It’s the fucking hardest thing a person can do.” I smooth a damp strand out of her face and away from my mouth. “It’s the hardest fucking thing. It’s why we drink and do drugs and fight. It’s why I play music and build engines. ↗

— Jasinda Wilder

#colton #cope #coping #cutting #drinking