Bybyberry

“Break-ups can be a good thing,” Jane says. “They can teach us about who we really are.” “Yeah, maybe, like, break-up number one or two,” I sigh. “But break-ups have depreciating gains. I’m thirty-five now. I know who I am. I am already sick of myself.”
― Dolly Alderton, Good Material

“But I’m not a member of that club any more. No one is. It’s been disbanded, dissolved, the domain is no longer valid. So what do I do with all its stuff? Where do I put it all? Where do I take all my new discoveries now I’m no longer in a tribe of two? And if I start a new sub-genre of love with someone else, am I allowed to bring in all the things I loved from the last one? Or would that be weird? Why do I find this so hard?”
― Dolly Alderton, Good Material

“He’d noticed I hadn’t been myself over the last few weeks and he’d kept asking me what was wrong. It was torture because he was my best friend and I told him everything. But I couldn’t tell him this, because the minute I said it out loud I knew we couldn’t come back from it. I don’t know if we’re right for each other, I don’t want your children, I don’t want anyone’s children, I don’t know if I want to be someone’s girlfriend. That would be it. The End.”
― Dolly Alderton, Good Material

“I don't know whether it was something I actually wanted, or whether it was something I got frustrated with myself for not wanting .Did I get bored of myself? Did I become too familiar with the rhythms of single life? Did I start to believe what everyone was telling me? That I was going to run out of time and get left behind? OR was it that I thought that being in a relationship might prove something ? That I wasn't unfeminine or unlovable or incapable of being a grown-up? That I was, in fact, perfectly normal like everyone else.”
― Dolly Alderton, Good Material