Leaving Time

The moral of this story is that sometimes, you can attempt to make all the difference in the world, and it still is like trying to stem the tide with a sieve. The moral of this story is that no matter how much we try, no matter how much we want it … some stories just don’t have a happy ending.

I think grief is like a really ugly couch. It never goes away. You can decorate around it; you can slap a doily on top of it; you can push it to the corner of the room—but eventually, you learn to live with it.

When someone leaves you once, you expect it to happen again. Eventually you stop getting close enough to people to let them become important to you, because then you don't notice when they drop out of your world.

If you think about someone you've loved and lost, you are already with them. The rest is just details.

Maybe growing up is just focusing on what you’ve got, instead of what you don’t.

You can’t blame someone if they honestly don’t understand that their reality isn’t the same as yours.

A bruise is how the body remembers it’s been wronged.

In the wild, an elephant mother and daughter stay in close proximity their whole lives; I hope I am that lucky.

I’m the princess in an ivory tower, except every brick is made of history, and I built this prison myself.

Sometimes I think there’s no such thing as falling in love. It’s just the fear of losing someone.

I wonder if, as you get older, you stop missing people so fiercely. Maybe growing up is just focusing on what you've got, instead of what you don't.

Grandmothers in Botswana tell their children that if you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, you must go together.

You can have the best intentions, but the moment there’s a hairline crack, it is only a matter of time before you go to pieces.

Engaging with haters is like rearranging pictures on the Titanic. What’s the point?

Could it be as simple as that? Could love be not grand gestures or empty vows, not promises meant to be broken, but instead a paper trail of forgiveness? A line of crumbs made of memories, to lead you back to the person who was waiting?

memory is linked to strong emotion, and that negative moments are like scribbling with permanent marker on the wall of the brain. But there’s a fine line between a negative moment and a traumatic one. Negative moments get remembered. Traumatic ones get forgotten, or so warped that they are unrecognizable,

Dreaming is the closest the average human gets to the paranormal plane; it’s the time when the mind lets down its guard and the walls get thin enough for there to be glimpses to the other side. That’s why, after sleeping, so many people report a visit from someone who’s passed.

I don't get to rewrite my story; I just have to stumble to the end of it.

no matter how much we try, no matter how much we want it … some stories just don’t have a happy ending.

the universe wants from us is two things: don’t do any intentional harm to yourself or anyone else, and get happy.

Keeping a secret isn't always lying. Sometimes it's the only way to protect the person you love.

It was almost as if there was a tear in the fabric I was made of, and he was the only color thread that would match to stitch it back up.

It's not that he doesn't love you enough to tell you the truth," she said. "It's that he loves you too much to risk it.

One of the most amazing things about elephants mourning in the wild is their ability to grieve hard, but then truly, unequivocally, let go. Humans can't seem to do that. I've always thought it's because of religion. We expect to see our loved ones again in the next life, whatever that might be. Elephants don't have that hope, only the memories of this life. Maybe that's why it is easier for them to move on.

If you think about someone you’ve loved and lost, you are already with them.

There are an endless number of people who have left a love-shaped hole in the heart of someone else. Eventually someone brave and stupid will come along and try to fill that hole. But it never works, and so instead, that selfless soul winds up with a gap in his heart, too. And so on. It's a miracle that anyone survives, when so much of us is missing.

I had not asked to be rescued, true, but that did not mean I didn't need saving.

My whole life, this is how I've defined the paranormal: can't understand it, can't explain it, can't deny it.

Children are the anchors of a mother’s life. —SOPHOCLES, Phaedra, fragment 612

Reality is frigid; I have to dip one toe at a time and grow accustomed to the shock before wading in further.