it is what it is

“His desire for loyalty was naive, he hadn’t understood that being loyal wasn’t so tidy, being loyal means being disloyal to everything else.”

“How long have you been holding those words in your head, hoping to use them?”

“So, do it. Decide. Is this the life you want to live? Is this the person you want to love? Is this the best you can be? Can you be stronger? Kinder? More compassionate? Decide. Breathe in. Breathe out and decide.”

“I think here I will leave you. It has come to seem there is no perfect ending. Indeed, there are infinite endings. Or perhaps, once one begins, there are only endings.”

“It ends or it doesn’t. That’s what you say. That’s how you get through it. The tunnel, the night, the pain, the love. It ends or it doesn’t. If the sun never comes up, you find a way to live without it. If they don’t come back, you sleep in the middle of the bed, learn how to make enough coffee for yourself alone. Adapt. Adjust. It ends or it doesn’t. It ends or it doesn’t. We do not perish.”

I looked at my mother because I was a version of my mother. I looked away from my mother because I was a version of my mother. I was me, but I was also her—my mother, and I understood this all too well.