Vanessa

“Because once you have known Mrs Death there is no unknowing her. You have a mourning that sits inside you. It’s like having a stone in your centre; time smooths the edges like a pebble in a river, but it’s always there – a stone is a stone. If you’ve known loss, you’ll know this stone, you will carry a stone of your own – this pain and weight – and you’ll know what I mean. It is a tattoo under the inside of you that cannot fade or be removed. There is no unknowing the memory that a certain date and time triggers: the smell of the season, the time, the weather . . . We replay it, the jolt, the shock, the finality of death.”
― Salena Godden, Mrs Death Misses Death: Salena Godden

“How often do you get to learn that lesson? That sometimes you just lose?”
― Bryan Washington, Memorial

“Love is what remains when everything else is gone.”
― Kristin Hannah, The Four Winds

“The thing about losing your mind is that it happens when you’re not paying attention. Depression is like a bedbug infestation—you keep waking up with bite-sized welts of self-doubt and sadness that at first you rationalize away, tricking yourself into believing you’re not sleeping enough or are undercaffeinated or just have a teeny case of the blues. Then one day you can’t get out of bed. That lasts for a week. Now you’ve got a problem. *”
― Rebecca Fishbein, Good Things Happen to People You Hate: Essays