GagaMil

“I could have spent the rest of my life trying to prove that I was a good girl - but that would have been unfaithful to who I really was. I believed that I was a good person, if not a good girl. But my appetites were what they were. So I gave up on the idea of denying myself what I truly wanted. Then I sought ways to delight myself. As long as I stayed away from married men, I felt that I was doing no harm.
Anyway, at some point in a woman's life, she just gets tired of being ashamed all the time.
After that, she is free to become whoever she truly is.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, City of Girls

“Life is a seesaw, and I am standing dead center, still and balanced: living kids on one side, living parents on the other. Nicky here with me at the fulcrum. Don’t move a muscle, I think. But I will, of course. You have to.”
― Catherine Newman, Sandwich

“Maybe grief is love imploding. Or maybe it’s love expanding. I don’t know. I just know you can’t create loss to preempt loss because it doesn’t work that way. So you might as well love as much as you can. And as recklessly. Like it’s your last resort, because it is.”
― Catherine Newman, Sandwich

“Here’s the thing about menopause, though, that I don’t entirely understand. We’ll exchange a few words like this? A seemingly slight disagreement? Only then rage fizzes up inside my rib cage. It burns and unspools, as berserk and sulfuric as those black-snake fireworks from childhood: one tiny pellet, with seemingly infinite potential to create dark matter—dark matter that’s kind of like a magic serpent and kind of like a giant ash turd. “Why do I have to be in charge of every single thing?” I hiss.”
― Catherine Newman, Sandwich