Adelaide Genevieve Wheeler Quotes

Pain is pain is pain...no matter how large or small your problems, your losses, your wounds--they are yours. And you're allowed to feel them. The hardest loss will always be your own.

Because if we knew, if we honestly knew the price of love was grief, we'd never do it.

There are parts of our hearts we give away. Not lend, but sacrifice entirely. And there are some people to whom we give these pieces, knowing we'll never really get them back.

She didn't want to die, per se, she just wanted to stop existing. Stop being.

The thing about Adelaide is that she felt everything. Truly, everything-except the things she most needed to feel.

How unfair, she thought. That she'd helped Rory piece himself back together, and he'd never even know she fell apart.

Sickness feels different when it takes place inside your head,

You forget what it feels like to have fallen apart once you've pieced yourself back together

It’s interesting, isn’t it? How easy it is to care for something once it’s no longer ours.

It was tricky to explain how much light and darkness could exist in the same setting

Maybe, the darkness isn’t such a bad thing. Maybe it’s a reminder that you’re capable of turning the car around, you know? You’re capable of rerouting from a very dark, scary path back to the light. You know how to go to that dark place now, but you also know how to come out of it.

You have to love fiercely, and unselfishly, and with intention, her mom said. It’s the only way.

You have to love freely, and unselfishly, and with intention... It's the only way

Just remember, she said. You run yourself ragged for other people, Adelaide. You deserve someone who’s going to show up for you, too. Yeah?

She thought about the way falling for Brennan felt like curling up by the fireplace, drinking hot tea, warming her bones and her heart and her soul with each metaphorical sip of his company.

Adelaide—the girl who felt everything—had to remind herself that it was, in fact, okay to feel. That it was okay to fill her lungs with air, her tank with fuel, her brain with the chemicals it needed. It was okay to go to hell and back, to carry every ounce of light and darkness inside of her. It was okay to love herself fiercely, a little selfishly, and with intention. It was all okay.

Her sister Izzy had a mantra, one Adelaide had learned decades earlier: Pain is pain is pain. It was important to recognize your privilege, yes. To show gratitude, to count your blessings. But it was also important to acknowledge and accept your pain, to understand that no matter how large or small your problems, your losses, your wounds—they are yours. And you’re allowed to feel them. The hardest loss will always be your own.

We tell ourselves stories in order to live. —Joan Didion, The White Album

It made her feel a bit nauseous, but also deeply, deeply in love.

that people entered our lives when we needed them most.

It's so cruel... that grief comes part and parcel with love. It's just so unfair.

You forget what it feels like to have fallen apart once you’ve pieced yourself back together, what the scars feel like once they’ve healed. You know, vaguely, where they were, how the fresh cuts had stung, but you can’t run your finger over the surface anymore and say, Here. Here’s where you hurt me. The pain will eventually dull.

Her heart didn’t break once. It had broken multiple times over the last year—over the last decade, really—and each time she’d started to put the puzzle back together, to reconstruct her heart and soul with metaphorical superglue, they would shatter again. The pieces were getting smaller, less recognizable, more difficult to reconnect with each blow.

She was always going to jump into this lake, no matter how dark or dangerous it might turn out to be; she was too intrigued by its shimmering surface to even consider turning away. There was no world in which she wouldn’t dive headfirst in love with Rory Hughes. This was the only way.

The thing about Adelaide is that she felt everything. Truly, everything. She cried during documentaries, while reading books, when royal babies were born. She cried when she was happy and when she was sad and when the world felt like it was all just too much and her face was on fire and the only way to cool it down was to cry, cry, cry, cry, cry. It often felt selfish and irrational. She knew she was so lucky, so blessed. That there was no reason to cry. It didn’t matter; she would cry anyway.

Pain is pain is pain. It was important to recognize your privilege, yes. To show gratitude, to count your blessings. But it was also important to acknowledge and accept your pain, to understand that no matter how large or small your problems, your losses, your wounds—they are yours. And you’re allowed to feel them. The hardest loss will always be your own.

I know that that sassy little minx called love will find me when I’m ready,

It was okay to love herself fiercely, a little selfishly, and with intention. It was all okay.

But Adelaide was learning that, sometimes, her needs trumped others’ minor irritations.

Remember that you’re still allowed to feel joy.

To catch her, to comfort her, to celebrate her. And, for nearly a decade, he’d only strengthened that perception. He was always on her side,

Sickness feels different when it takes place inside your head, Adelaide thought. When the illness flows through the chemicals of your mind rather than clogged sinuses or broken bones. No illness is ever really linear. But the thing is, once you’ve gotten so sick you nearly kill yourself, your mind knows where it can go. It knows that no recesses are out of bounds or off-limits.

Because if we knew, if we honestly knew the price of love was grief, we’d never do it. We’d never succumb in the first place. And once we do—once we fall in love, against our better judgment, with something or someone—we never want to let go. No matter how many dinners they miss, how many texts they ignore. None of it matters. And none of it mattered. Adelaide was never going to let go.

Because young women with promise, with kindness, with ambition and swarms of adoring family and friends … they’re not meant to die suddenly at twenty-seven. They’re meant to live. Nothing makes sense in a world where they do not live.

Because if we knew, if we truly knew the price of love was grief, we'd never do it. We'd never succumb in the first place. And once we do—once we fall in love, against our better judgment, with something or someone—we never want to let go.

Here’s the thing: If you’re bereft and grieving and brokenhearted, and you’re presented with the opportunity to say, My name is Peter Parker. I was bitten by a radioactive spider and now I’m covering myself in parmesan cheese and chili flakes because I am pizza … You must—must!—take it.

There was something about Nico that Eloise had felt early on—this sense that they were a team, a unit, no matter what. She knew Nico would always be there. To catch her, to comfort her, to celebrate her. And, for nearly a decade, he’d only strengthened that perception. He was always on her side, Eloise thought. Always.

She cried when she was happy and when she was sad and when the world felt like it was all just too much and her face was on fire and the only way to cool it down was to cry, cry, cry, cry, cry. It often felt selfish and irrational. She knew she was so lucky, so blessed. That there was no reason to cry. It didn’t matter; she would cry anyway.

Adelaide—the girl who felt everything—had to remind herself that it was, in fact, okay to feel. That it was okay to fill her lungs with air, her tank with fuel, her brain with the chemicals it needed. It was okay to go to hell and back, to carry every ounce of light and darkness inside of her. It was okay to love herself fiercely, a little selfishly, and with intention.

There were parts of them that clicked together like puzzle pieces. (But there were also parts, jagged edges, that didn’t align at all.)

Later, she will forget. She’ll forget what it was like to be this heartbroken, this unwell. To sit on her floor with her back against the charcoal couch, wiping her eyes with freshly laundered shirts, then cursing again when, stupidly, she’d smudged them with mascara. You forget what it feels like to have fallen apart once you’ve pieced yourself back together, what the scars feel like once they’ve healed. You know, vaguely, where they were how the fresh cuts had stung, but you can’t run your finger over the surface anymore and say, Here. Here’s where you hurt me. The pain will eventually dull. But not yet.

That was how they first met: Emory was strumming a Say Anything song at a birthday party and caught Adelaide’s eye, singing the words “I’d walk through hell for you” straight into her goddamned soul.

You forget what it feels like to have fallen apart once you’ve pieced yourself back together, what the scars feel like once they’ve healed. You know, vaguely, where they were, how the fresh cuts had stung, but you can’t run your finger over the surface anymore and say, Here. Here’s where you hurt me. The pain will eventually dull. But not yet.)

There are parts of our hearts we give away. Not lend, but sacrifice entirely. And there are some people to whom we give these pieces, knowing we’ll never really get them back.

The fact that people like this just fell out of our universe - just stopped existing - was so scary, so cold.

How do you keep your feet on the ground knowing your world is not one person - one brilliant, effervescent, incredibly kind, loving person - lighter?

But it feels so cold here without her.

So many things that never should have belonged to him had become his.

She was, and would forever be, vivacious and vibrant, filled with reasons to celebrate herself and others. Frozen and memorialized with her warmth, her ambition, her beauty, her light all burning bright as ever. Without prolonged suffering or bitterness. Nothing but frenetic energy, boundless potential, and love left behind.

I don't know how to balance my mental health needs with my obsessive need to please.

For my parents, my sisters, and the many women who held my broken pieces

Did Rock Bottom even permit visitors?

How lucky she was to exist in this reality. How terrified she was of this luck running out.

No, she doesn't know all of this just yet. All she knows is that she's alive and loved and breathing. She's here. And everything is going to be okay

Love was challenging, complex, unforgiving, yes. But love was also meant to feel easy, comfortable

I've always had this theory. This theory that people come into our lives when we need them most. Not when we least expect them, and not when we try to will them into existence—no, when the universe knows we need them.

She didn’t want to die, per se, she just wanted to stop existing. Stop being.

Because if we knew, if we honestly knew the price of love was grief, we’d never do it. We’d never succumb in the first place. And once we do—once we fall in love, against our better judgment, with something or someone—we never want to let go. No matter how many dinners they miss, how many texts they ignore. None of it matters. And none of it mattered.

This theory that people come into our lives when we need them most. Not when we least expect them, and not when we try to will them into existence—no, when the universe knows we need them.

It was an inappropriate amount of sobbing over a boy with whom she’d been on three dates, Adelaide knew, but she couldn’t help herself. She sobbed anyway.

She felt like prey. Her body was his, her interest was known, the thrill of the chase was over—he’d consumed her and discarded the scraps and now, that was all she was. A mangled carcass of a girl.

if any family understood the complexities of a suicidal episode and the healing power of fast food, it was the Williamses.)

You forget what it feels like to have fallen apart once you’ve pieced yourself back together, what the scars feel like once they’ve healed.

There are parts of our hearts we give away. Not lend, but sacrifice entirely. And there are some people to whom we give these pieces, knowing we’ll never really get them back. It felt like Adelaide had been holding on, with all her might, to the chunk of her heart she’d given to Rory. No, she said. I still need it, she said. But there was no use. It was his now. It would always be his. And, with the gentle thunk by which her letter landed in the postbox, Adelaide felt like she’d finally let it go.

Adelaide was a funny sort of feminist in that she believed, fiercely, in reversing and subverting stereotypical gender norms, but often subscribed to them herself.

Even if I’m not the one who gets to marry you someday, I hope I can shake the hand of the man who does.

It was all so difficult, she felt, and Adelaide didn’t know how to explain why she wanted to decorate her flat with peonies and plants and color-coordinated stacks of books while simultaneously wanting her life to end. She wanted to be here, on this earth—to squeeze her friends’ hands on their wedding days, to kiss their babies, to send care packages to her family for their birthdays. But she also just wanted to die. To leave. If she felt more secure in her faith—safer in the knowledge that heaven existed, that she was guaranteed entry—she would have done it. She would have left. But she didn’t want to go to hell or the Bad Place or that island in Lost. Right now, she just wanted to not live and be safe.

Do the thing that sets your heart on fire, Wetherly said. For me, that thing was writing. I woke up at four each morning and wrote, for years. And this book is the product of those hours, of that dedication. Writing was what set my heart ablaze, and now I get to do that full time.

She had this theory, remember? The one that the most important people entered our lives when we needed them most? She’d thought it applied to Rory Hughes (for a time, she’d even thought it was true of Nathalie Alban). How could she have been so wrong? Maybe you weren’t wrong, Meg would tell her the next afternoon. She took a sip of tea (Meg always drank tea during their sessions, without exception). Maybe you need to flip this theory on its head. Maybe you were meant to enter his life at the time he needed you—you—most.

Blind Pig,

Adelaide was good at making friends in a Let’s contemplate our own mortality in the corner sort of way.

ItIt was also important to acknowledge and accept your pain to understand that no matter how large or small your problems, your losses, your wounds they are yours. And you're allowed to feel them. The hardest loss will always be your own.

You loved Conversations with Friends? Just wait until you get your hands on Normal People.

Because if we knew, if we honestly knew the price of love was grief, we’d never do it. We’d never succumb in the first place.

Have you seen Paddington 2? he asked. It’s a goddamned masterpiece, I swear to you.

Sometimes the flings would last a night, other times they’d stretch on for a week or two. Three tops. They were always finite, always ended in disappointment and disappearances.

She knew that not all love felt the same, of course, but she tended to experience love (be it romantic, platonic of familial) in all-consuming, dizzying proportions... She dove in headfirst. It was the only way she knew.