Danielle

“When you are ready," Jake says, his eyes on the sea, "someone is going to be very lucky."
I feel the ocean exhale. Relief at relinquishing to its shores what it can no longer hold.
"We'll see," I tell him.
He nods. "We'll see.”
― Rebecca Serle, Expiration Dates

“But when it came, all I felt was fear. Fear that he wouldn't be who I'd imagined. Fear that I wasn't ready. Fear that I wouldn't feel the way I was supposed to. Fear that I'd fuck up even this, this thing I was meant for. But what I was not afraid of, maybe, was that it was over. It's hard to be single, but it's also something you can get good at. And I was good at it. It's easy to love the things we are good at.
Yes, I wanted epic love. Weak-in-the-knees, movie-kiss-in-the-rain epic love. What I never realized, not up until this very moment, is that I got it - everything I'd been asking for. I'd been on the back of a motorcycle in Paris and across the Golden Gate Bridge at sunrise. I'd been on the beach in Santa Monica at sunset. My life has been filled with magical moments, I was just so busy waiting I didn't see them when they were here.”
― Rebecca Serle, Expiration Dates

“I wonder if I'll miss it, I think. The feeling of openness. The understanding, even buried down deep, that anything could happen. That I could bump into someone at an airport or in line at the pharmacy. That the man three stools over at the bar could be taking me home tonight. That the next great adventure was just a slip of paper away. Being single is like playing the lottery. Most of the time all you're left with from that trip to the convenience store is a bag of chips and a six-pack. But then there's always the chance. There's always the chance, however slim, that with one piece of paper you could win it all.”
― Rebecca Serle, Expiration Dates

“I often wonder what our responsibility is to other people, how much we owe them. Whose job is it to look out for our own happiness. Us, or the people who love us? It's both, of course. We owe ourselves and we owe each other. But in what order? As I look at Jake sitting across from me I feel the desire to protect him palpably - I feel it down deep in my bones. And then I consider something else, something that is hard to look at but impossible, now, to ignore. I wonder if I've been seeing that desire - honoring it, recognizing it - and calling it love. Protection and love are not the same thing. Love says, I will try and I will fail. Love says, Despite. Love says, And yet and yet and yet.”
― Rebecca Serle, Expiration Dates