Boxofdelights

“Once, when I was in high school, and unhappy about having to deal with a math teacher who struck me as arrogant, my mom heard my complaint, nodded understandingly, and then shrugged. "You don't have to like your teacher, and she doesn't have to like you," she said. "But she's got math in her head that you need in yours, so maybe you should just go to school and get the math." She looked at me then and smiled, as if this should be the simplest thing in the world to grasp. "You can come home to be liked," she said. "We will always like you here.”
― Michelle Obama, The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times

“As Rage Becomes Her author Soraya Chemaly said, One of the top three reasons women report getting angry is the lack of reciprocity in relationships. They feel taken for granted, uncared for, unloved, even as they’re providing care to parents, to children, to spouses, to friends, to coworkers to neighbors, whoever it may be. Being exhausted and fed up at the same time accumulates. I think a lot of the rage people feel is because for the entirety of their lives their needs were not being addressed or met fairly. But now, with the added stresses and exhaustion of this physical transition, that situation is not tenable. This—a lack of reciprocal care and attention—is not about hormones.”
― Heather Corinna, What Fresh Hell Is This?: Perimenopause, Menopause, Other Indignities, and You

“To be able to wrap your own voice around your own mind, and to be able to craft it into something that has the capacity to make a room full of strangers think and feel differently, even if it's just for a moment in time, is an incredible and humbling thing to be able to do.”
― Hannah Gadsby, Ten Steps to Nanette

“A mended garment is a little piece of artwork that you wear around all day, on display like a living gallery wall, eliciting comments, starting conversations, an opening sentence to a good story.”
― Nina Montenegro, Mending Life: A Handbook for Repairing Clothes and Hearts