Paula Halcom

“There is something incredibly healing about getting to be the thing in someone else's life that you wished you'd had in your own.”
― Melanie Shankle, Here Be Dragons: Treading the Deep Waters of Motherhood, Mean Girls, and Generational Trauma

“...But then I decided to dive a little deeper and said, "I wish I would've learned earlier on to be myself and express what mattered to me and how I actually felt about things." I didn't really know how to do that. I'd grown up hiding my feelings because there wasn't room for them while I lived with Suzanne [mom]. My goal at all times was to try and keep everything as calm as possible. I lived in a constant state of "Don't anger it." ...I hadn't meant to bring those things into my marriage, but the people pleaser in me had been forged by my first eighteen years. It turns out that wasn't just something that living on my own or being married could fix. It took me many years to figure it out that it was okay to voice discontentment or disagree with someone I loved.”
― Melanie Shankle, Here Be Dragons: Treading the Deep Waters of Motherhood, Mean Girls, and Generational Trauma

“[She was] the kind of woman who wanted to have it all...But the problem is, once you love someone, you can't have it all anymore. Love comes with sacrifice. That's how it works.”
― Emily Henry, Great Big Beautiful Life

“Happiness is a choice as much as anything. Or you could choose to be angry, and if you stay angry long enough, it will become comfortable, like an old robe. But eventually you'll realize that old robe is all you've got, and there isn't anything else in the wardrobe that fits. And at that point, you're just waiting to trade the robe for a shroud—or at least, that's what I've always thought.”
― Kate Quinn, The Briar Club