When people say time heals, they are wrong. Time simply extinguishes hope. New mothers are told to let infants cry at night to learn to sleep alone— Just a week and you’re free! Yes, it takes on week of abject misery to break the spirit, to inure it to abandonment and betrayal. Maybe it took longer with me, but by then I was grown. If I’ve devoted myself to Mark’s happiness it’s because I can’t see well or perceive well. If he laughs or is happy, then I know things are okay. If he feels cold, I take a sweater. In the absence of true love and true joy, maybe it’s best to treat happiness like any other need- hunger, exhaustion, thirst- factually recognized, functionally resolved.
— Anthropology of an American Girl by Hilary Thayer Hamann (via quote-book)
