Tagged: heartbreak
After a while you learn the subtle difference between
holding a hand and chaining a soul,
And you learn that love doesn mean learning and
company doesn mean security,
And you begin to learn that kisses aren contracts
and presents aren promises,
And you begin to accept your defeat with your head
up and you eyes open, with the grace of an adult,
not the grief of a child,
And you learn to build all you roads on today
because tomorrow ground is too uncertain for
plans.
After a while you learn that even sunshine burns if
you get too much.
So you plant your own garden and decorate your own
soul, instead of waiting for someone else to bring you
flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure…
That you really are strong,
And you really do have worth.
Veronica A. Shoffstall
“I cannot think well of a man who sports with any woman’s feelings; and there may often be a great deal more suffered than a stander-by can judge of.” -Jane Austen, Mansfield Park
“Time was passing like a hand waving from a train I wanted to be on. I hope you never have to think about anything as much as I think about you.” – Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Toska – noun /ˈtō-skə/ – Russian word roughly translated as sadness, melancholia, lugubriousness.
“No single word in English renders all the shades of toska. At its deepest and most painful, it is a sensation of great spiritual anguish, often without any specific cause. At less morbid levels it is a dull ache of the soul, a longing with nothing to long for, a sick pining, a vague restlessness, mental throes, yearning. In particular cases it may be the desire for somebody of something specific, nostalgia, love-sickness. At the lowest level it grades into ennui, boredom.”
-Vladimir Nabokov, cited in A Field Guide to Melancholy, by Jacky Bowring
“There is a loneliness that can be rocked. Arms crossed, knees drawn up, holding, holding on, this motion, unlike a ship’s, smooths and contains the rocker. It’s an inside kind–wrapped tight like skin. Then there is the loneliness that roams. No rocking can hold it down. It is alive. On its own. A dry and spreading thing that makes the sound of one’s own feet going seem to come form a far-off place.” -Toni Morrison, Beloved
“The heart that breaks open can contain the whole universe.” -Joanna Macy
“Pain reaches the heart with electrical speed, but truth moves to the heart as slowly as a glacier.” – Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams
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