Tea Stankovic

“You've been wondering about your own relationship to open water. You've been wondering about the trauma and how it always finds its way to the surface, floating in the ocean. You've been wondering about how to protect that trauma from consumption. You've been wondering about departing, about being elsewhere.
You have always thought if you opened your mouth in open water you would drown, but if you didn't open your mouth you would suffocate. So here you are, drowning.”
― Caleb Azumah Nelson, Open Water

“We are constantly producing the past. We are factories for the past. Living past-making machines, what else? We eat time and produce the past. Even death doesn’t put a stop to this. A person might be gone, but his past remains.”
― Georgi Gospodinov, Time Shelter

“True belonging has no hint of arrogance or reactivity, and as Brené Brown says, it is not passive. “[True belonging] is a practice that requires us to be vulnerable, get uncomfortable, and learn how to be present with people without sacrificing who we are.”
― Vienna Pharaon, The Origins of You: How Breaking Family Patterns Can Liberate the Way We Live and Love

“You scared?” she asked.
“Yes,” I answered.
“I know,” she said. “What you’re going through is scary.”
A wave of comfort washed over me. My friend hadn’t urged me to be strong. She hadn’t told me to stand tall or soldier on. She hadn’t uttered the shallow reassurance that I’d get through this. Rather, she’d given me permission, right before sleep, to be the frightened little girl that I was.”
― Diane Guerrero, In the Country We Love: My Family Divided