Irene > Recent Status Updates

“…I once asked him, “Why do you love me?” His reply came swiftly and surely: “Because you belong to me.””

“It’s true, a human being can endure a lot, not only out of habit, but because a faint spark glimmers within them, which they secretly hope will one day allow them to break the habit. The fact that they usually can’t, out of weakness or cowardice, does not speak against it.”

“We were just characters in a soap opera now, except the drama was real and the consequences permanent. Our grief had been reduced to a mere commodity, packaged and sold, consumed and discarded.”

I wondered how the public’s consumption of others’ pain and suffering cross the line from empathy to voyeurism?

I wanted to scream at them all to stop. To leave it alone. Some things should remain unspoken. Some horrors should be left in the dark where they belong. This was one of them.

“I realized I, too, would have to learn to “let it go.” That wouldn’t mean forgetting or excusing what had happened. It would mean allowing myself to feel, to be imperfect, to love myself and others without judgment. It would mean breaking the cycles of fear and control that had been passed down to me. It would mean recognizing my power, facing my fears, and always choosing love over fear, again and again.”

“But the past can’t be unwritten. It can only be reckoned with, learned from, one brutal day at a time.”

“Sometimes, family isn’t just what you’re born into—it’s also what you build in the aftermath of loss.@

“The idea of not existing brought a perverse sense of relief, even as the rational part of my brain fought against it.”

“And what does consent really look like when you’re a child, too afraid to say no?”

sorry for dumping a bunch if quotes from this book its just shari franke writes with the voice angsty 14 year old and its endlessly entertaining

“In my young mind, I imagined couples setting timers, treating the act with the same clinical detachment as baking a cake. Plug it in for thirty seconds, and voilá! A baby is on the way.”

“Ruby and I couldn’t be real friends until I was a woman with a husband and a family of my own. Until I was her equal. Just as Ruby had to become a wife and mother to truly earn her own mother’s respect, I, too, would have to do the same. I would have to wait to be loved.”

“For what better way to fill the gaping void within than to surround yourself with adoring little mini-mes?”

“In her arms lay not just a baby but a woman’s ultimate power. Her divine right to mold a new soul in her own image.”

“Kevin, caught off-guard, uttered the most dangerous word in the dictionary: “Yes.””

“Becoming a mother, in my faith, is a spiritual calling of the highest order, a chance to emulate the divine and participate in the grand tapestry of creation. Perhaps that’s why the physical toll… weren’t seen as obstacles to overcome or burdens to be endured, by Ruby. Rather they were sacred trials, opportunities to demonstrate her unwavering faith in God’s plan…”