I'll Have What She's Having

Learning the art of making an argument without yelling or screaming is something to behold. I’ve always dreamed of becoming the kind of person who can do that. Nothing feels like winning more than not losing your temper.

The people who don't get you are not your problem. Sitting around and thinking of all the people who don't love you or don't wanna hang out with you just diminishes your own light. Focus on where the light and love come from and park yourself in front of that. There are many moments in life when your own light is all you need.

When you see something, you must say something. You must. That is what sisterhood is. Never looking away, never apologizing to or accommodating men who are powerful, and making sure every time you leave a room, everyone knows you were there and what it is you stand for.

You are the love of your life.

The very meaning of a full existence on this earth is to find out who you are and why you are here. Universal intelligence is the idea that when things don’t turn out your way, it is because the universe is protecting you and steering you in a different direction. We all need to spend less time questioning disappointments or rejections.

Sometimes, things fly out of my mouth that are so stupid there is almost no point in addressing them. I just try to move the conversation on as quickly as possible in an effort to make up for it in the next part of our exchange. Make a new impression to replace the last one is how I like to think of it.

Therapy was exhausting in the sense that every new development or idea led to a period of intense self-awareness followed by waves of acute self-consciousness coupled with endless self-recrimination. This was an overcorrection on my part, and I needed to stop looking outward and thinking about what people thought of me, or feeling shame at how many people I had offended over the years. I needed to pivot toward thinking about the type of person I wanted to be, rather than obsessing on the history of my behavior.

that. Ironically, the act of pursuing a less self-absorbed perspective very directly conflicts with having to talk about yourself for hours ad infinitum.

keep my head geared toward the sky

There will be many surprises in how people react to your own personal transformation and betterment. These are not obstacles

One of my biggest takeaways from my work with Dan Siegel was learning about nonreactive behavior: How to take something in

Freedom isn’t only knowing myself but trusting myself. To know that I have always been able to rely on myself. That I am strong, and that part of my strength is to know in moments of weakness that I will be strong again. To know that I will land on my feet. To trust myself. That is what freedom means to me.

ten conversations between Eckhart Tolle and Oprah about the meaning of consciousness and how to loosen your grip on things that you can’t control, understanding that you are not your thoughts but the awareness of your thoughts.

Grateful that I went after my happiness like my life depended on it, because it did. The time spent in therapy, the time after therapy, and the calm and patience I have gained through growth and learning more and doing better. No one is unrecoverable. You can change your life anytime you want.

Telling a woman who doesn’t want children that she is being irresponsible by not procreating is as hypocritical as one can get. I’m proud of myself for knowing what I’m capable of.

First of all, I very much want to die alone. The reason to have a partner or children should not be so that they will be there to watch you die. I look forward to paying some nurse or drug dealer to either put me down like a horse or help usher me out of this world with a large dose of morphine. I don’t want anyone to watch me die or to be there with me. I just want to go to sleep and drift into whatever is next, and if there is absolutely nothing beyond this world, that’s fine, too. I’m not that worried about it.

The amount of time I have spent listening to women complain about losing complete autonomy over their lives due to having children would equal the amount of time it would take for me to complete a full-term pregnancy.

Once safely inside the car, I texted the photo of the president and me to Andrew Cuomo. I wrote, “Good enough for a president, but not good enough for a governor.

Bert and Bernice are both rather aloof, but even taking that into account, they weren’t acting like themselves. They were wandering around the property listlessly, not like dogs at all, but more like stray senile cats. Roy and I sat outside watching Bert smell a paddleboard for close to twenty minutes. “They seem a bit off, no?” I asked Roy. “Chelsea,” he said with a sigh, taking a sip of his beer. “You just sent your dogs on a methamphetamine high-speed car chase across the country because a governor wouldn’t fuck you during a global pandemic. Give it a minute. They’re detoxing.

I didn’t want to date him, because dating a politician would definitely prohibit my own behavior, but I did want to have sex with him and tell all my friends about it.

The truth of the matter was: Who knows what drugs I was on? It could have been anything. It’s my state of mind that determines my behavior on drugs, and if I’m in a good place in my life, and I’m grounded, drugs are fun, and so am I; if I’m in a bad state of mind or in a bad time of my life, drugs will only make me defensive or angry, and that’s when I bite. What struck me in that moment was Jane’s brutal honesty.

I have been called stupid many times in my life. I have been called dumb, obnoxious, trashy, raunchy, crass, a fake, and various other things throughout my career. I have been all of those things at certain moments, but not one of those words encapsulates who I am. None of the things other people have called me has ever really mattered. What other people say about you only matters if you believe what they are saying is true.

Now I understand that there are things we will never understand about the universe and what makes things happen and what makes things go away, and that your only job is to not resist reality. The quicker you accept a situation, the quicker you move through it and on from it. Let it go, and see what the universe drums up for you.

I happened to really like both of the girls, and didn’t want to hold their father’s behavior against them. I wouldn’t want anyone to blame me for the terrible behavior my used-car-dealer father had exhibited throughout my life, and I had come to understand that we are not responsible for our fathers’ actions.

I have always been very open when telling personal stories, because I like to tell the truth. But this was one more thing I needed to work on tempering in my new life: sometimes my stories don’t belong only to me, and when that’s the case, it would be more considerate of others to keep my mouth stapled shut.

Good,” she told me. “Go find out what your problem is, because your gifts are plentiful, and sometimes people with the most gifts have the easiest time throwing them in the trash. Don’t be a product of your environment, Chelsea. Make your environment be a product of you.