nicole

“You and I are now the Romeo and Juliet of friendships. Only we’re the Juliet and Juliet.”
― Holly Goldberg Sloan, To Night Owl from Dogfish

“Somewhere deep in my twisted little brain is the desire to be so good at so many things that I earn the chance to be multiple people. It seems so unfair that we only get to read the choose-your-own adventure book of our lives once, that we can't pick a point and go, "Okay, this time flip to page 102 and do the rest another way.”
― Mary Laura Philpott, I Miss You When I Blink: Essays

“I used to think that if only I could make everything perfect, then I could relax and have fun. If I could just eliminate all mistakes, my life would settle into place - click! - and my mind would rest. If I'm being truthful, I have to acknowledge that on some unchangeable, deep-down level, there's still a part of me that thinks that. I'm still a first grader at a spelling bee, thinking that what matters more than anything is that I get every word right.

But by now, I've built up a crowd of selves who can set that little girl at ease. It's okay, they tell her. Mistakes will happen - they have happened - and it's not the end of the world. They get her to loosen up a little bit. They help her see that doing things wrong is part of doing life right. They show her that joy is bigger than fear. It can even be funny when things go haywire.”
― Mary Laura Philpott, I Miss You When I Blink: Essays

“Maybe under the stress of new parenthood, whatever adult personality I’d concocted was being stripped for parts, and I would be left with only my teenage core.”
― Meaghan O'Connell, And Now We Have Everything: On Motherhood Before I Was Ready