against narrative

Was I a good partner, or was I a bad partner? Did I hurt him, or did he hurt me? Was the great tragedy of our relationship that we’d been doomed from the start, or that we veered off track somewhere, quietly, imperceptibly, and were too far gone by the time we’d realized it? On some days, I was certain that he hadn’t loved me enough; on others, I w... See more

Our breakup was so protracted, in part, because our story was so, so good, and I wanted so badly for the story of our relationship to be the story of my life — doing the dishes in the nighttime, his hands over my eyes when we watched horror movies, the love songs I wrote him on our anniversary. A math prodigy and a writer. Our children would have m... See more

I’m always thinking about that Raúl Zurita quote that people put on Tumblr: Toda declaración de amor es urgente porque vamos a morir [every declaration of love is urgent because we’re going to die]. In real life, obviously, you cannot declare love to just anyone. You have to go with the flow, wait on other people’s time, accept their ambivalence, t... See more

He said, it just seems like it doesn’t make sense to get rid of all of — he paused — this . He was gesturing vaguely to something like our love, or our history, or the life we had built together, and I’m not sure if even he knew exactly what he was talking about, but I knew what he meant. Some people spend their whole lives looking for a good story... See more

To tolerate life , as Gaitskill implores us to do, you first have to actually live in it — get up in the morning, take out the trash, eat breakfast, go to work, get on the train, try not to look too deeply into the faces of the people sitting across from you, walk home, call your parents, pay your rent — and you must do all of this amid immeasurabl... See more