Being Someone's Rebound Quotes

That a president is inevitably put forward and elected by the forces of established wealth and power means usually that he will be indentured by the time he reaches office. But in fact he is the freest of men if he will have the courage to think so and, at least theoretically, could be so transported by the millions of people who have endorsed his candidacy as to want to do the best for them. He might come to solemn appreciation of the vote we cast, in all our multicolored and multigendered millions, as an act of trust, fingers crossed, a kind of prayer. Not that it’s worked out that way. In 1968 Richard Nixon rebounded from his defeat at the hands of Jack Kennedy, and there he was again, his head sunk between the hunched shoulders of his three-button suit and his arms raised in victory, the exacted revenge of the pod people. That someone so rigid and lacking in honor or moral distinction of any kind, someone so stiff with crippling hatreds, so spiritually dysfunctional, out of touch with everything in life that is joyful and fervently beautiful and blessed, with no discernible reverence in him for human life, and certainly with never a hope of wisdom, but living only by pure politics, as if it were some colorless blood substitute in his veins—that this being could lurchingly stumble up from his own wretched career and use history and the two-party system to elect himself president is, I suppose, a gloriously perverse justification of our democratic form of government.

Matt takes some time to settle himself before he speaks. When he does, he shares an anecdote about how Julie had written a book for him to have after she was gone, and she titled it, The Shortest Longest Romance: An Epic Love and Loss Story. He loses it here, then slowly composes himself and keeps going. He explains that in the book, he was surprised to find that near the end of the story—their story—Julie had included a chapter on how she hoped Matt would always have love in his life. She encouraged him to be honest and kind to what she called his “grief girlfriends”—the rebound girlfriends, the women he’ll date as he heals. Don’t mislead them, she wrote. Maybe you can get something from each other. She followed this with a charming and hilarious dating profile that Matt could use to find his grief girlfriends, and then she got more serious. She wrote the most achingly beautiful love letter in the form of another dating profile that Matt could use to find the person he’d end up with for good. She talked about his quirks, his devotion, their steamy sex life, the incredible family she inherited (and that, presumably, this new woman would inherit), and what an amazing father he’d be. She knew this, she wrote, because they got to be parents together—though in utero and for only a matter of months. The people in the crowd are simultaneously crying and laughing by the time Matt finishes reading. Everyone should have at least one epic love story in their lives, Julie concluded. Ours was that for me. If we’re lucky, we might get two. I wish you another epic love story. We all think it ends there, but then Matt says that he feels it’s only fair that Julie have love wherever she is too. So in that spirit, he says, he’s written her a dating profile for heaven. There are a few chuckles, although they’re hesitant at first. Is this too morbid? But no, it’s exactly what Julie would have wanted, I think. It’s out-there and uncomfortable and funny and sad, and soon everyone is laugh-sobbing with abandon. She hates mushrooms, Matt has written to her heavenly beau, don’t serve her anything with mushrooms. And If there’s a Trader Joe’s, and she says that she wants to work there, be supportive. You’ll also get great discounts. He goes on to talk about how Julie rebelled against death in many ways, but primarily by what Matt liked to call “doing kindnesses” for others, leaving the world a better place than she found it. He doesn’t enumerate them, but I know what they are—and the recipients of her kindnesses all speak about them anyway.

We've always been a country that prizes the individual over the greater group. Never forget: We were founded by a pack of men who were tired of being told what to do. Then, starting in the 1950s, pop culture began to promote the nuclear family. A thriving singular family unit seemed like a good way to encourage security amid the anxieties of a post-World War II nation. The success of just your family - over, say, the other ones on the block - became a point of pride in a country desperate to rebound after fighting two nightmarish wars in less than fifty years. Collectivism, which (surprising no one) puts value on the collective society, may have made up the building blocks of other Western nations. But it was deemed un-American. As the nuclear family became more important, the role of the family evolved. The goal of raising children isn't just to exponentially increase the amount of love and connection in the household or to add supportive new members to the wider social fabric. Instead, parents are essentially told their job is to effectively launch the nuclear families of tomorrow and to keep our individualist society spinning. Parents are encouraged to rear independently minded kids who will be self-supporting individuals by early adulthood. Not only should they be going to school and/or getting a "good" job, but also in their own homes and settings themselves up for financial success before their prefrontal cortex is finished settling. During this time, they should also be searching for a life partner to build their own nuclear family with. If someone hasn't "left the nest" by twenty-five, everyone involved is seen as a failure.So a lot of dating-age people are left feeling like lonely cogs in the machine of life, instead of valued humans who are allowed to ask for connection and empathy.

We've always been a country that prizes the individual over the greater group. Never forget: We were founded by a pack of men who were tired of being told what to do. Then, starting in the 1950s, pop culture began to promote the nuclear family. A thriving singular family unit seemed like a good way to encourage security amid the anxieties of a post-World War II nation. The success of just your family - over, say, the other ones on the block - became a point of pride in a country desperate to rebound after fighting two nightmarish wars in less than fifty years. Collectivism, which (surprising no one) puts value on the collective society, may have made up the building blocks of other Western nations. But it was deemed un-American.As the nuclear family became more important, the role of the family evolved. The goal of raising children isn't just to exponentially increase the amount of love and connection in the household or to add supportive new members to the wider social fabric. Instead, parents are essentially told their job is to effectively launch the nuclear families of tomorrow and to keep our individualist society spinning. Parents are encouraged to rear independently minded kids who will be self-supporting individuals by early adulthood. Not only should they be going to school and/or getting a "good" job, but also in their own homes and settings themselves up for financial success before their prefrontal cortex is finished settling. During this time, they should also be searching for a life partner to build their own nuclear family with. If someone hasn't "left the nest" by twenty-five, everyone involved is seen as a failure.So a lot of dating-age people are left feeling like lonely cogs in the machine of life, instead of valued humans who are allowed to ask for connection and empathy.

We've always been a country that prizes the individual over the greater group. Never forget: We were founded by a pack of men who were tired of being told what to do. Then, starting in the 1950s, pop culture began to promote the nuclear family. A thriving singular family unit seemed like a good way to encourage security amid the anxieties of a post-World War II nation. The success of just your family - over, say, the other ones on the block - became a point of pride in a country desperate to rebound after fighting two nightmarish wars in less than fifty years. Collectivism, which (surprising no one) puts value on the collective society, may have made up the building blocks of other Western nations. But it was deemed un-American.As the nuclear family became more important, the role of the family evolved. The goal of raising children isn't just to exponentially increase the amount of love and connection in the household or to add supportive new members to the wider social fabric. Instead, parents are essentially told their job is to effectively launch the nuclear families of tomorrow and to keep our individualist society spinning. Parents are encouraged to rear independently minded kids who will be self-supporting individuals by early adulthood. Not only should they be going to school and/or getting a "good" job, but also in their own homes and settings themselves up for financial success before their prefrontal cortex is finished settling. During this time, they should also be searching for a life partner to build their own nuclear family with. If someone hasn't "left the nest" by twenty-five, everyone involved is seen as a failure.So a lot of dating-age people are left feeling like lonely cogs in the machine of life, instead of valued humans who are allowed to ask for connection and empathy.