Trisha

“Art, if you loved it, was worth any amount of unhappiness and pain. If you had to hurt someone to achieve those ends, so be it. If the outcome was beautiful enough, strange enough, memorable enough, it did not matter. It was worth it.”
― Kevin Wilson, The Family Fang

“She would tunnel down to the bottom of the bed and I would drag her back up for air. Then she would tunnel back down to the bottom of the bed and I would drag her back up for air. We”
― Steven Rowley, Lily and the Octopus

“By the time we moved back to Baltimore, the “Believe” trash cans were long gone and the benches had yet another slogan painted on them. This city has had more eras than Taylor Swift. The slogan that greeted us as we arrived was “Baltimore: the greatest city in America.” And at that point I was like, “Okay, absolutely not.” Babe. This feels like shade. The greatest city? In America?? Better than Chicago? Better than Pawnee, Indiana?! Better than the murder capital of the world, Cabot Cove, Maine? Okay…”
― R. Eric Thomas, Congratulations, The Best Is Over!: Essays

“Then there are also the quiet deaths. How about the day you realized you weren't going to be an astronaut or the queen of Sheba? Feel the silent distance between yourself and how you felt as a child, between yourself and those feelings of wonder and splendor and trust. Feel the mature fondness for who you once were, and your current need to protect innocence wherever you make might find it. The silence that surrounds the loss of innocence is a most serious death, and yet it is necessary for the onset of maturity.

What about the day we began working not for ourselves, but rather with the hope that our kids have a better life? Or the day we realize that, on the whole, adult life is deeply repetitive? As our lives roll into the ordinary, when our ideals sputter and dissipate, as we wash the dishes after yet another meal, we are integrating death, a little part of us is dying so that another part can live.”
― Matthew Sanford, Waking: A Memoir of Trauma and Transcendence