Vanessa

“There is thought, and then there is thinking about thoughts, and they don't feel the same.”
― Susanna Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted

“I walked past the lady in yellow robes and the maid bringing her a letter, past the soldier with a magnificent hat and the girl smiling at him, thinking of warm lips, brown eyes, blue eyes. Her brown eyes stopped me.
It's the painting from whose frame a girl looks out, ignoring her beefy music teacher, whose proprietary hand rests on her chair. The light is muted, winter light, but her face is bright.
I looked into her brown eyes and I recoiled. She was warning me of something-- she had looked up from her work to warn me. Her mouth was slightly open, as if she had just drawn a breath in order to say to me, "Don't!"
I moved backward, trying to get beyond the range of her urgency. But her urgency filled the corridor. "Wait," she was saying, "wait! Don't go!"

...

She had changed a lot in sixteen years. She was no longer urgent. In fact, she was sad. She was young and distracted, and her teacher was bearing down on her, trying to get her to pay attention. But she was looking out, looking for someone who would see her.
This time I read the title of the painting: Girl Interrupted at Her Music.
Interrupted at her music.- as my life had been, interrupted in the music of being seventeen, as her life had been, snatched and fixed on canvas: one moment made to stand still and to stand for all the other moments, whatever they would be or might have been. What life can recover from that?
I had something to tell her now "I see you," I said.
My boyfriend found me crying in the hallway.
"What's the matter with you?" he asked.
"Don't you see, she's trying to get out," I said, pointing at her.”
― Susanna Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted

“The struggles and the chaos are part of life. But you have to accept them with grace and serenity because they have their own gifts too.”
― Demi Lovato, Staying Strong: 365 Days a Year

“Some people say that having any conscious opinion on the matter is a mark of sanity, but I'm not sure that's true. I still think about it. I'll always have to think about it.
I often ask myself if I'm crazy. I ask other people too. 'Is this a crazy thing to say?' I'll ask before saying something that probably isn't crazy.
I start a lot of sentences with 'Maybe I'm totally nuts,' or 'Maybe I've gone 'round the bend.'
If I do something out of the ordinary, like take two baths in a day for example- I say to myself: Are you crazy"
It's a common phrase, I know. But it means something particular to me: the tunnels, the security screens, the plastic forks, the shimmering, ever-shifting borderline that like all boundaries beckons and asks to be crossed. I do not want to cross it again”
― Susanna Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted