Samantha > Recent Status Updates

“What I don’t admit to Roy then was that part of me felt at home in this. That the pattern, the dynamic, was familiar to me. That I’d spent my whole life trying to prove myself. That I was used to being siphoned from. That destruction, invisible or unfathomable to outsiders, wasn’t anything new or extraordinary to me.”

No one gets sober until being drunk is more painful than facing the thing you are running from.

It’s not your job to protect everybody else from feeling emotions. Your job and responsibility is to live your life in a way that is aligned with your values, and what you know deep down is true for you.

She doesn’t know what words there are or how to arrange them or what use it would be anyway.

I know what it’s like to shut down and power through, to have no choice other than to pretend to be okay. I am a savant of survivor mode.

But faith doesn’t mean that to me anymore. Now it means seeing something in you that you don’t, and not giving up until you see it too. I want that.

All my life, I’ve found it difficult to advocate for myself, to ask for what I want. I fear burdening people so much.

I’d always been an idea or a thought of what someone else wanted me to be. Perhaps that’s why I was called to the darkness so much more. I could hide the various versions of myself I was forced to be.

His cruelty was in his absence. Even when he came and sat at her dinner table and ate her food, he was not there.

Out in the country, mornings are magical. Watching the sunrise over the fields, catching the glittering diamonds of dew on the flower petals, listening to the wake-up cells of nature— you don’t get this living in town.

“There are things that happen to us that… change us. Your mother is a very emotional woman, and what might change one person can destroy another. That’s the fight your mom steals with on a daily basis, Elle— trying not to let the weight of all the hurt and pain she carries destroy her.”

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die.

They were two irreparably flawed people. Together they almost made a whole person, and he figured that might just be enough.

That’s the burden we, the living, are forced to bear. The cost of living someone so much their loss leaves a them-shaped hold inside our lives. That every moment should have the slight aftertaste of them, the quiet whisper of ‘he should be here, and he isn’t, and that will never not hurt.’

Even when things are happy, something is always missing, and there’s no doubt it’s him.

It’s the smallest memories that make me miss him, even now. The tiny flickers of who we used to be. Of how bright and full the world once was.

She didn’t turn to me, or the nurses who walked past, just drew inward as if she knew her only source of solace was going to come from somewhere deep within herself.

You can’t over-drown a person. Once they’re underwater, it doesn’t matter how much is above them if they can’t swim upward.

Sometimes it feels like the world is caving in, and I’m the only one in the center, my arms outstretched trying to brace it. And I’m just so tired. I can’t help but wonder how long I can hold it before we’re all crushed under the weight.

The worst thing about going through so much in such a short time? You can’t afford to feel anything about… anything, or you end up feeling it all.

Sometimes you have to leave so you can know what it is you left. You don’t really value something until you’ve lost it.

The kind of peace that comes when one knows the end of a love story.

Menschen sterben
(People die)
Blumen welken
(Flowers wilt)
Eisen und stahl bricht
(Iron and steel break)
Aber unsere frundshaft nicht
(But not our friendship)

This is the most important thing I have ever learned: the greatest thing you will ever do is be loved by another person.
I cannot emphasize this enough, especially to young people. Without friendship, a human being is lost. A friend is someone who reminds you to feel alive.

Tomorrow will come if you survive today. One step at a time.

There are many things in this world that no amount of money will buy you, and some things priceless beyond measure. Family first, family second, and family at the last.

Don’t walk behind me,
I may not lead.
Don’t walk in front of me,
I may not follow.
Just walk beside me and be my friend.

Fault should not be found in a man protecting his family with the tools provided, only in those who did not try.