learning to lose
and getting to grips with grief — in any and every way, shape and size it shows up in life.
learning to lose
On the one hand, I want to encourage you in your grief, so that you may fully experience it in all its depth. For as an encounter with a new intensity, it is a profound experience of life and leads you back toward life again, as all things do that reach a certain degree of extremity.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Sometimes there are times in our lives of incredible intensity, of crazy love or change or unbelievable grief, and then also there are fallow years where little happens, years you barely notice in their passing. And I think maybe the book is not just about intensity but about the space around it too, like the space it leaves in its passing and the
... See moreWhat I understand now is that I could never escape from my love for S, nor would I want to. To be loved by him, to love and care for him, is neither my birthright or destiny. It’s the groove worn into the earth by repetitive pacing over thousands of days. It’s the room I’m locked in that I can never get out of. It’s the room that I would return to ... See more
no exit
“Give to someone only as much of you they are able to receive. If their vessel isn’t spacious enough to hold all of you, there will only be an overflow of rejection.”
In my thirties, I learned that there is a type of pain in life that I want to feel. It’s the inevitable, excruciating, necessary pain of losing beautiful things: trust, dreams, health, animals, relationships, people. This kind of pain is the price of love, the cost of living a brave, openhearted life—and I’ll pay it.
Glennon Doyle • Untamed: Stop Pleasing, Start Living: THE NO.1 SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
a house where you have cried over multiple heartbreaks is infinitely better than a house where you’ve only cried over one, defining, bad thing.
Christina Joyce Hauser • The Crane Wife: A Memoir in Essays
Last week I planted an acer in the furthest bed from the house, in honour of our new baby. The sapling is as tall as me and, by all accounts, it can grow forty feet tall. So, in thirty years’ time, if we’re still here I can come back and see this tree in its maturity. But the thought depresses me: in thirty years’ time I’ll be in my mid sixties and
... See moreWilliam Boyd • Any Human Heart
pure love never dies, we just stop updating the context that feeds the immediate feeling.