Life with most teenagers was like having a low-grade bladder infection. It hurts, but you had to tough it out.
Anne LamottRead
What if we never 'get over' certain deaths, or our childhoods? What if the idea that we should have by now, or will, is a great palace lie? What if we're not supposed to? What if it takes a life time...?
Interpretation
This quote challenges the notion of moving on from loss or past experiences, suggesting that it's natural to carry them throughout life.
Anne Lamott's quote explores the complex relationship we have with grief and our pasts, proposing that the expectation to 'get over' certain painful experiences may be misleading. Instead, she invites us to consider that some memories and losses remain with us, shaping our identity and understanding over a lifetime, and that perhaps this is a part of the human experience rather than a problem to overcome.
In practice
During a memorial service, I shared this quote to highlight the ongoing nature of grief.
Life with most teenagers was like having a low-grade bladder infection. It hurts, but you had to tough it out.
Or you might shout at the top of your lungs or whisper into your sleeve, "I hate you, God." That is a prayer too, because it is real, it is truth, and maybe it is the first sincere thought you've had in months.
Your problem is how you are going to spend this one odd and precious life you have been issued. Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over people and circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are.
It is hard to remember that you are a cherished spiritual being when you're burping up apple fritters and Cheetos.
Gorgeous, amazing things come into our lives when we are paying attention: mangoes, grandnieces, Bach, ponds. This happens more often when we have as little expectation as possible. If you say, "Well, that's pretty much what I thought I'd see," you are in trouble. At that point you have to ask yourself why you are even here. [...] Astonishing material and revelation appear in our lives all the time. Let it be. Unto us, so much is given. We just have to be open for business.
...because when people have seen you at their worst, you don't have to put on the mask as much.
There is a dark side in all of us. And for us 'bad' people, the bad side dominates. I think there is a great sadness in villains, and I have tried to put that across. We cannot stop ourselves doing what we are doing.
In time you shall see Fate approach you In the shape of your own image in the mirror.
We pity in others only the those evils which we ourselves have experienced.
During our dreams we do not know we are dreaming. We may even dream of interpreting a dream. Only on waking do we know it was a dream. Only after the great awakening will we realize that this is the great dream.
Woe, destruction, ruin, and decay; the worst is death and death will have his day.
In the human heart one generation of passions follows another; from the ashes of one springs the spark of the next.
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