Sarah Smith

“Getting dumped is never really about getting dumped.'
'What is it about, then?' I ask.
'It's about every rejection you've ever experienced in your entire life. It's about the kids at school who called you names. And the parent who never came back. And the girls who wouldn't dance with you at the disco. And the school girlfriend who wanted to be single when she went to uni. And any criticism at work. When someone says they don't want to be with you, you feel the pain of every single one of those times in life where you felt like you weren't good enough. You live through all of it again.'
'I don't know how to get over it, Mum,' I say. 'At this point I'm so tired of myself. I don't know how to let go of her.'
'You don't let go once. That's your first mistake. You say goodbye over a lifetime. You might not have thought about her for ten years, then you'll hear a song or you'll walk past somewhere you once went together - something will come to the surface that you'd totally forgotten about. And you say another goodbye. You have to be prepared to let go and let go and let go a thousand times.'
'Does it get easier?'
'Much,' she says.”
― Dolly Alderton, Good Material

“For though they were not sung, it was the mothers, the daughters and the wives who kept the world turning, the fires lit, the lights burning.”
― Claire North, The Last Song of Penelope

“Grief, oh god, the weight of it. Depression was hollow, sadness was vacant. Neither was anything like this.”
― Olivie Blake, The Atlas Complex

“More like the fear of motherhood--of knowing fear will never really leave you and still there are no other options, no other choices, because to love something is to care for it, to glimpse everything you will someday lose and still go on as if that loss will not destroy you. Because for better or worse, and so often it was worse, that love was as much a burden as a blessing. It was an anchor to all the grace and cruelty of this life.”
― Olivie Blake, The Atlas Complex