winter

“Mothers have martyred themselves in their children’s names since the beginning of time. We have lived as if she who disappears the most, loves the most. We have been conditioned to prove our love by slowly ceasing to exist.

What a terrible burden for children to bear—to know that they are the reason their mother stopped living. What a terrible burden for our daughters to bear—to know that if they choose to become mothers, this will be their fate, too. Because if we show them that being a martyr is the highest form of love, that is what they will become. They will feel obligated to love as well as their mothers loved, after all. They will believe they have permission to live only as fully as their mothers allowed themselves to live.

If we keep passing down the legacy of martyrdom to our daughters, with whom does it end? Which woman ever gets to live? And when does the death sentence begin? At the wedding altar? In the delivery room? Whose delivery room—our children’s or our own? When we call martyrdom love we teach our children that when love begins, life ends. This is why Jung suggested: There is no greater burden on a child than the unlived life of a parent.”
― Glennon Doyle, Untamed

“A broken family is a family in which any member must break herself into pieces to fit in. A whole family is one in which each member can bring her full self to the table knowing that she will always be both held and free.”
― Glennon Doyle, Untamed

“from what we cannot hold the stars are made”
― W.S. Merwin

“DO NOT FALL IN LOVE WITH PEOPLE LIKE ME
Do not fall in love with people like me.
People like me will love you so hard
that you turn into stone,
into a statue where people come to marvel at how long
it must have taken to carve that faraway look into your eyes.

Do not fall in love with people like me.
We will take you to museums and parks and monuments
and kiss you in every beautiful place
so that you can never go back to them
without tasting us like blood in your mouth.

Do not come any closer.
People like me are bombs.
When our time is up, we will splatter loss all over your walls
in angry colors that make you wish your doorway
never learned our name.

Do not fall in love with people like me.
With the lonely ones.
We will forget our own names if it means learning yours.
We will make you think that hurricanes are gentle,
that pain is a gift.

You will get lost in the desperation, in the longing
for something that is always reaching,
but never able to hold.

Do not fall in love with people like me.
We will destroy your apartment.
We will throw apologies at you that shatter on the floor
and cut your feet.
We will never learn how to be soft.
We will leave.
We always do.”
― Caitlyn Siehl, What We Buried