Κωνσταντίνα

“Pain is pain is pain. It was important to recognize your privilege, yes. To show gratitude, to count your blessings. But it was also important to acknowledge and accept your pain, to understand that no matter how large or small your problems, your losses, your wounds—they are yours. And you’re allowed to feel them. The hardest loss will always be your own.”
― Genevieve Wheeler, Adelaide

“Later, she will forget. She’ll forget what it was like to be this heartbroken, this unwell. To sit on her floor with her back against the charcoal couch, wiping her eyes with freshly laundered shirts, then cursing again when, stupidly, she’d smudged them with mascara. You forget what it feels like to have fallen apart once you’ve pieced yourself back together, what the scars feel like once they’ve healed. You know, vaguely, where they were how the fresh cuts had stung, but you can’t run your finger over the surface anymore and say, Here. Here’s where you hurt me. The pain will eventually dull. But not yet.”
― Genevieve Wheeler, Adelaide

“Remember, Adelaide. You’re allowed to take up space, too.”
― Genevieve Wheeler, Adelaide

“Sickness feels different when it takes place inside your head, Adelaide thought. When the illness flows through the chemicals of your mind rather than clogged sinuses or broken bones. No illness is ever really linear. But the thing is, once you’ve gotten so sick you nearly kill yourself, your mind knows where it can go. It knows that no recesses are out of bounds or off-limits.”
― Genevieve Wheeler, Adelaide