The Divorce Party

There are different ways to be confused about how someone's disappointed you. Some lie about the future because they wanted to forget the past. But some will lie about the past because they think it will give you both a future.

These things...they are who you are. They brought you here. To this day. You didn't give me a chance to understand that ever the unattractive parts of you, the messy parts, were something I could accept.

Why does it take fear to move you? Why does it take chaos to make us understand exactly what we need to do?

Belief isn't supposed to make sense, at least not all the time. In that, it finds its power. It gets to creep up on you and carry you forward. Until you can carry yourself again.

There is a moment in every relationship when you see the whole thing. The question is when does the moment come? Is it the first time you see the person and instinctively know that things between you are going to work out, or fail? Or is it a moment toward the end, however you get there, when you realize that there is something behind this persons eyes that you were never able to touch, no matter how hard you tried?

This is the painful part. Love doesn't leave you. Not all at once. It creeps back in, making you think it can be another way, that it can still be another way, and you have to remind yourself of the reasons that it probably won't be.

It's harder to appreciate what you don't have to look hard to find.

Love doesn't leave you. Not all at once. It creeps back in, making you think it can be another way, that it can still be another way, and you have to remind yourself of the reasons that it probably won't be.

But Eve - ow whoever comes after Eve - cant save him from eventually doing the hard work that comes after that. The work he has never wanted to do, that she spent the better part of her life trying to protect him from having to do. To jump beyond the impasses, the stuck places, to go deeper with someone. You can do the work to honor what you created, or you don't. But if you don't, you get to the same point with the next person, don't you? You get to the same point, the same questioning, until you push through it. Until you are brave enough to not expect anyone else to see in you what you can't see in yourself.

People don’t break up because someone’s family is a little . . . messy. If that were the case, no one would ever get married.

What I’m trying to say is that it will be okay between you and Nate. Because you both want that. Because you both want that more than anything. It sounds simple, but I’m learning that the problems start when you want different things

But being absent and being peaceful are two different things. They can look alike, but they are really the opposite.

only knows that the important part is to decide to stay. Again and again. And, on the days you can’t, to resist deciding anything else.

Beauty won’t protect you. Not in the end. What will is the one thing you can’t plan for. The one thing you can’t save for or search for or even find. It has to find you and decide to stay. Time. More of it. More of it to try and make things right.

Mother-in-laws are the worst. You know, they don’t like you, they make you feel bad about yourself, they have a divorce party the day you meet them and you have to face the fact that they are crazy. Plus, if you aren’t very sure of yourself, you may start feeling like you are going that way too.

And you shall take me strongly In your arms again And I will not remember That I ever felt the pain.

Gwyn looks up at her daughter, makes her meet her eyes. “What I think is that there is no good way or bad way. And the sooner we let go of expectations about how things are supposed to go, the happier we get to be.

She tries to figure out how to say it so he hears her.

She has learned, over time, that the way someone laughs often mirrors who they are. How they are.

You think if you don’t talk about it, you can just pretend everything is all right? Everything is not all right. Not with us, not with your parents, not with anything today. And if you let yourself go anywhere real with it, you have to acknowledge it.

We have to figure out how to let go, and forgive. This is our job

to experience all of the good and bad it brings—is to not sit near the exit. Because if you are sitting near the exit, you will find a reason to use it.

What matters most to me and what am I willing to risk? And what, in this life, am I brave enough to fight for?

You can stay together for the wrong reasons as much as for the right ones and who is to say you’ll be more or less happy either way?

He doesn’t have to look hard enough to find it,” she says. “Her beauty.” “So?” “It’s harder to appreciate what you don’t have to look hard to find.

She can see that he believes the impossible, which can be a recipe for disappointment, but is also the first step—the absolutely necessary step—to working toward anything that is possible. And stable. And true.

I’m thinking that with enough practice, you can talk yourself into or out of anything,” Maggie says.

To jump beyond the impasses, the stuck places, to go deeper with someone. You can do the work to honor what you created, or you don’t. But if you don’t, you get to the same point with the next person, don’t you? You get to the same point, the same questioning, until you push through it. Until you are brave enough to not expect anyone else to see in you what you can’t see in yourself.

Besides, she learned this lesson a long time ago: just because a man looks upset, just because he is upset, doesn’t mean he is going to do anything to correct the situation. For himself, for anyone else.