Paula Halcom

“[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

“...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

“Adults always think they can protect children by stopping them from going to dangerous places, but every teenager knows that's pointless, because the most dangerous place on earth is inside us. Fragile hearts break in palaces and in dark alleys alike.”
― Fredrik Backman, My Friends

“She realizes that children are always too young and self-absorbed to really see their parents in the prime of their lives.”
― Blake Crouch, Recursion