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“[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.”
― Great Big Beautiful Life
― Great Big Beautiful Life
“As I mothered Caroline, I grieved for the younger version of myself who missed out on having a mom who was able to love me in a healthy, supportive way. However, the key to letting God completely heal you is to fully grieve as you surrender the hope you had that things could be different and trust that He will redeem what you've been through in ways you can't see at the time. He will truly give us beauty for the ashes of things in our lives that have burned down. I knew that everything my mom had done and said had been out of her own woundedness and brokenness, and I could look at her life and see the choices and events that had caused much of that. It makes me sad for her. Could she have been capable of more? Absolutely. Did she choose that path? No.”
― Here Be Dragons: Treading the Deep Waters of Motherhood, Mean Girls, and Generational Trauma
― Here Be Dragons: Treading the Deep Waters of Motherhood, Mean Girls, and Generational Trauma
“Then, suddenly, they're incredibly proud, but they're proud of the accomplishment, not of the work. So you feel like you have to keep accomplishing instead of just creating. It affirms the idea that the value in what you do is how people react to it, and not just the making of it. I've written stuff I'm really proud of that hardly anyone read. I've written stuff of I'm proud of that no one liked. That doesn't mean it didn't deserve to be written.”
― Great Big Beautiful Life
― Great Big Beautiful Life
“Art is what can't fit inside a person. The things that bubble over.”
― My Friends
― My Friends
“...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.”
― Here Be Dragons: Treading the Deep Waters of Motherhood, Mean Girls, and Generational Trauma
― Here Be Dragons: Treading the Deep Waters of Motherhood, Mean Girls, and Generational Trauma
Paula’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Paula’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
730 books
|
2 friends
175 books
|
10 friends
349 books
|
60 friends
205 books
|
11 friends
215 books
|
35 friends
131 books
|
4 friends
0 books
|
2 friends
0 books
|
5 friends
More friends…
Favorite Genres
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