Sammi

“Instead of avoiding processing by leaping into the next project, Sam got ambitious about, well, peace... She mourned the all-hands-on-deck, everyone's emergency contact, always hustling version of herself, that she knew was not coming back. "So I mourned for a couple days - I mourned my youth, I mourned my innocence, I mourned everything"...
That change in identity; changing as circumstances change, rather than clinging to a fixed goal that no longer feels true, can feel like racing a ghost of yourself. My ghost self, my former self, was faster, sharper, and willing to do anything. She said yes to everything and pleased everyone. She's who I see in the mirror sometimes when I say 'no I can't' or, 'no I won't.' Or when I wonder what happened to the girl who would prove herself a million times over to an audience of no one. And smile while she was doing it.”
― Rainesford Stauffer, All the Gold Stars: Reimagining Ambition and the Ways We Strive

“She would never be able to make this plain, undeviating man understand that the most fragile inner parts of a woman were compiled from a million subtle looks and careless statements from others; this was identity.”
― Susie Yang, White Ivy

“Something I find incredibly boring [..] is everyone's conviction that love is different for them. Somehow harder. Do you know what I mean? I just don't think it's hard. It's just another way of thinking you're special, the way everyone does when they're a teenager. You think you aren't able to love, except that of course you are. You think you aren't able to love correctly or the same as everyone else, except that of course you are, you just haven't had a chance to do it yet.

You are not special, you're just waiting.”
― Julia Armfield, Our Wives Under the Sea

“Weylyn's expression shifted gears. I could tell, even before he spoke, that he had drained his mind of his own sadness, and replaced it with empathy for mine.”
― Ruth Emmie Lang, Beasts of Extraordinary Circumstance