Sydney Penrose

"If someone seems boring to you... it might be that you don’t know how to prompt them. You probably don’t know how much beauty lies hidden in the people around you."

sometimes i wonder if this shift is grief reshaping us, the way hard seasons strip life back to its bones. other times, i think it might be the opposite: maybe it’s just coming home to yourself.

we deeply, almost desperately, want to believe: that our lives can pivot on a dime, that redemption is waiting around the corner, and that maybe — just maybe — we’re the ones holding the pen on our own plot twists. but the danger, of course, lives in everything that happens between the glossy befores and afters. the middle chapters. you know the... See more

We don’t give other people credit for the same interior complexity we take for granted in ourselves, the same capacity for holding contradictory feelings in balance, for complexly alloyed affections, for bottomless generosity of heart and petty, capricious malice. We can’t believe that anyone could be unkind to us and still be genuinely fond of us,... See more

i used to think that outgrowing meant failure. that if a job or a friendship or even an identity no longer fit, it was because i hadn’t tried hard enough to hold on or make it work. now i see it differently: outgrowing means you listened closely. you let yourself expand, even when it was inconvenient. you listened to the whisper. you honoured the... See more

But this can't just be another autumn resolution written in your journal, which you'll abandon anyway because you realize it will require months or years of working on it.

and that’s what i think so many of us are longing for now: a life stitched together from small rituals, cups of tea that go cold on the counter, slow mornings and early nights, shelves of novels read for no reason except delight. afternoons that stretch quietly, plants to tend to on the windowsill, bread rising on the counter, a circle of people... See more

Ideas for my writing never come out of nowhere, but instead are a reflection of the strands of work that I am reading, listening, and reflecting on at any given time.

I grew up in a family where conflict was messy, and while that may have worked there, I don’t want to carry it into my friendships, my relationship, or my future family. At my core, those instincts may always be there. But I can choose differently. I can slow down, think before I speak, and hold myself back when I feel like snapping.

Kindness,... See more