Riyah’s Reviews > Sorrow and Bliss > Status Update

“I told her she was right - the things she had said on the phone and in her letter. I have been loved every day of my adult life. I have been unbearable but I have never been unloved. I have felt alone but I have never been alone and I've been forgiven for the unforgiveable things I have done.”

“You thought it was the right thing to do. You thought it was best for her, even though you wanted her so much. That's how I know -' he said, maybe this isn't helpful
- but that's how I know you were supposed to be a mother. You put her above yourself. That's what mothers do, isn't it?' He said obviously, I'm only guessing.”

AND THEN THEY BOTH CRIED AWH THIS IS ALL JUST SUCH A BIG PITY

DIDN’T EXPECT TO BE HAPPY A MAN READ A WOMANS JOURNAL BUT THIS WAS NEEDED

“Most of the time it was amazing.
You made me so happy, Martha. You have no idea. You have no idea how good it was. That's the part I'm finding hardest to deal with. That you were oblivious to everything that was good about it. You couldn't see it.'
I told Patrick I could now.”

You constantly accused me of being passive & not wanting anything but I wasn't allowed to. That's how it worked. Accepting whatever I got was the only way to keep the peace.

I'm the worst person in world. No you're not.'You're not the best person in the world either, which is what you really think. You're the same as everybody else. But that's harder for you, isn't it.The idea you might be ordinary is unbearable.'

Even the person, a man who wrote speeches about me, and gave things up for me, who sat beside the bed for hours while I was crying or unconscious, who said he'd never change his mind about me and stayed even after he knew I was lying to him, who only hurt me as much as I deserved, who put oil in the car and would never have left me if I hadn't told him to.

SHE DESPERATELY WANTS HIM BACK
WHAT DID SHE WRITE THO?!

I'd find in my writing - self-fascination, banality, descriptions of things - would make me go outside and set it on fire.
It wasn't that or, at least, I saw shame and hope and grief, guilt and love, sorrow and bliss, kitchens, sisters and mothers, joy, fear, rain, Christmas, gardens, sex and sleep and presence and absence, the parties. Patrick's goodness. My striking unlikeability and attention-seeking punctuation.

But they all said, a person, a family, a home, money, to not be alone.
That is all anybody wants.

“Everything goes away eventually, and women are always the last ones standing so we just make up something else to want.'
'I don't want it to be an invented thing?
Everything is invented. Life is invented. Everything you see anyone doing is something they made up. I invented Swindon for fuck's sake, and made myself want it and now I do.”

“He had been going to say, No doubt my wife will correct me later and insist it was just for the open bar, but we are all here for the love of this uncommon, beautiful, maddening woman - who does not, in my opinion, look a day over thirty-nine and twelve months. He was going to say, 'I wish it wasn't the case, but everyone knows Martha is the only thing I’ve ever wanted in my life”
I’m so sad this is so sweet

“Martha, when you are in a room, nobody wants to talk to anybody else.
And you have been loved for all your adult life by one man. That is a gift not many people get, and his stubborn, persistent love isn't in spite of you and your pain. It is because of who you are which is, in part, a product of your pain. You do not have to believe me about that but I know that your pain has made you brave enough to carry on.”