Ariela

“When it comes to love, I’ve learned nothing: I love too intensely and I’m consumed by my own love (analysis, jealousy, doubt)—so much that when I’m in love, I always end up slightly extinguished and saddened. When I love, I become harsh, serious, intolerant. A heavy shadow settles over my relationships. I love and want to be loved with so much gravitas that it quickly becomes exhausting (for me, for the other person). It’s always an unhealthy kind of love.”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband

“just being perceived, all the time being perceived, was itself exhausting.”
― Kaveh Akbar, Martyr!

“She finally comprehended parenthood’s strange paradox: that it was deeply annihilating while at the same time also somehow deeply comforting. It was both soul-devouring and soul-filling.”
― Nathan Hill, Wellness

“Tonight, I decide that if I could have one magical power, I would want to control dreams. I would inflict horrible nightmares on anyone who posed a threat to me, and meddle in my husband’s sleep to make him dream of me each night. I would imbue the fear of losing me into his subconscious, constructing a world in which I leave him for another man and he dies of sadness. I would show him my body in its most magnificent form so that he would never stop desiring me, and our house looking its best so that he would always want to stay. I would weave beautiful images of us into each of his nights so that he would continue loving me.”
― Maud Ventura, My Husband