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“The human heart has hidden treasures, In secret kept, in silence sealed; The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures, Whose charms were broken if revealed.”
― The Agency for Scandal
― The Agency for Scandal
“Grief is like a deep, dark hole. It calls like a siren: Come to me, lose yourself here. And you fight it and you fight it and you fight it, but when you finally do succumb and jump down into it, you can't quite believe how deep it is. It feels as if this is how you will live for the rest of your life, falling. Terrified and devastated, until you yourself die.”
― Carrie Soto Is Back
― Carrie Soto Is Back
“It was okay to win as long as I acted surprised when I did and attributed it to luck. I should never let on how much I wanted to win or, worse, that I believed I deserved to win. And I should never, under any circumstances, admit that I did not believe all of my opponents were just as worthy as I was. The bulk of the commentators... they wanted a woman whose eyes would tear up with gratitude, as if she owed them her victory, as if she owed them everything she had.”
― Carrie Soto Is Back
― Carrie Soto Is Back
“Grief is like a deep, dark hole. It calls like a siren: Come to me, lose yourself here. And you fight it and you fight it and you fight it, but when you finally do succumb and jump down into it, you can’t quite believe how deep it is. It feels as if this is how you will live for the rest of your life, falling. Terrified and devastated, until you yourself die.
But that is the mirage.
That is grief’s dizzying spell.
The fall isn’t never-ending. It does have a ground floor.
Today, I cry for so long that I finally feel the floor under my feet. I find the bottom. And while I know the hole will be there forever, at least for now, I feel as if I can live inside it. I have learned its boundaries and its edges.”
― Carrie Soto Is Back
But that is the mirage.
That is grief’s dizzying spell.
The fall isn’t never-ending. It does have a ground floor.
Today, I cry for so long that I finally feel the floor under my feet. I find the bottom. And while I know the hole will be there forever, at least for now, I feel as if I can live inside it. I have learned its boundaries and its edges.”
― Carrie Soto Is Back
“Gwen smiles. “Do you know what part of ‘If—’ is actually relevant right now? To this moment? ‘If you can make one heap of all your winnings / And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, / And lose, and start again at your beginnings / And never breathe a word about your loss.’ ” She must be messing with me. Surely she knows she’s just described my greatest fear. But no, I can tell from the look on her face that she sincerely thinks that I’m that brave, that I am doing this because I am okay with losing big. Not because I am terrified of losing at all. And it stuns me silent, for a moment: just how vast the gap is between who I am and how people see me.”
― Carrie Soto Is Back
― Carrie Soto Is Back
Steph’s 2025 Year in Books
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