Dreams of Falling

you never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.

Don’t think of the realities, Ceecee. Think of possibilities and dreams. Of things you can’t even imagine yet. And write those down.

Learning who you are and changing aren't always the same thing, you know. Sometimes we think we've changed, but all we've done is grow into the person we were always meant to be.

Margaret Darlington had the kind of power that made sane people do insane things.

a thousand good intentions could never tip the scale over one unforgivable mistake.

Because she needed ore than sleep. She needed oblivion.

Grief was like that, Ceecee had learned. It either opened your heart or closed it.

Everything I’ve ever learned has brought me to this one conclusion – we are all thrown into this world without a road map, and it’s up to us to muddle through. We are free to make a mess of it or to make a success out of our lives. Most of us choose something in between.

They sat in silence, watching the river flow in the same direction it always had, a ribbon connecting the past with the present, and a reminder that time moved on regardless of whether you wanted it too.

I was like a child leaving a gift unwrapped, the anticipation more exciting than the reality.

If it got out that I didn’t have to rush back, I’d be forced to stay longer. The thought of remaining scared me. Like I’d start shedding my new, shiny skin I’d worked so hard to achieve, revealing the scarred and ugly person beneath.

A sharp twist of grief pulled at my heart. I sucked in a deep breath of marsh air, briny and moist, trying to clear my head. I loved who I’d become. I did. Almost as much as I hated the old me. But not, I suddenly realized, all of the old me. I missed the girl who’d known these secret alleyways into the marshes and who could recognize the sounds of the different bird and open an oyster faster than anyone she knew. But I’d gotten rid of her along with the rest of me, and the grief I felt was raw and open.

I learned the hard way that you can’t spend your whole life facing the wrong way. You’ll never see what’s ahead of you if all you ever see are ghosts of your past.

For the first time in nine years, I felt embarrassed about my abrupt departure and the complete severing of all my ties. My actions had been justified – I was still sure of that. But all the time I’d been away, I’d assumed that everything had remained the same, that people and beliefs hadn’t changed. Which was stupid, because I hadn’t stayed the same. I felt a little of my old resolve not to look back shift and redistribute itself, like sand in and outgoing tide.

My childhood had been vanishing bit by bit while I’d been living in New York, trying to pretend it had never existed. Maybe that was what the old saying – that a person can never really go home again – was all about. You couldn’t go home because even though home might still be there in brick and mortar, everything else would be unrecognizable.

I don’t hold on grudges, you know. They’re like expired milk in the fridge.

Throughout our lives we are all falling. Falling down, falling out, falling away. Falling in love. The trick is finding someone to catch us. And sometimes we surprise ourselves by finding out that person is us.

Learning who you are and changing aren’t always the same thing, you know. Sometimes we think we’ve changed, but all we’ve done is grow into the person we were always meant to be.

People have different ways of expressing love. It doesn’t mean the love is worth any less.

Maybe that’s what being a mother was—not so much the act of giving birth, but the sense of understanding and love born from the need to protect.

There’s something about mothers and daughters, I think, that makes us always want to hold close at the same time we try to push each other away.

You were never a disaster. Ever. It seems to me that the more we try to dissect our pasts, the more we try to go back and relive them. Trust me, it’s more important to pick up the pieces and move forward and live our lives the best way we can. I’ve never been a fan of leftovers.

It’s easy to be kind and giving and loyal when you have everything. But the mark of a true friend is when everything is taken away and you’re still kind, giving, and loyal.” “Margaret’s going through a

I needed to learn that you never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have.

Love is knowing something is true deep in your heart despite all evidence to the contrary.

It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in the tree’s power. But I believed in the power of human imagination more, of projecting our dreams and wishes into a safe space where we could place our disappointments if they didn’t come true.

But I don’t believe in luck. I believe that love creates good fortune and builds empires, and it’s doubt and envy that destroy both.

Sharing the good and bad times with a lifelong friend made the business of living a lot more bearable.

It’s not about how well I did. It’s about how far I’ve come, and how far I still have to go. It’s about being okay with not being the best, because there are a million and one things out there to try until I do find the thing that I’m good at and that makes me happy.

I met his gaze, unable or unwilling to hide my shame and embarrassment. That I had allowed it to happen to me. Then, and now. Because there was no sense in concealing so many years of being stupid and naïve and listening to no one brave enough to tell me differently. It was humbling to admit to myself that I hadn’t changed at all.