Expiration Dates Rebecca Serle Quotes

It’s hard to hold on to people the older we get. Life looks different for everyone, and you have to keep choosing one another. You have to make a conscious effort to say, over and over again, “You.” Not everyone makes that choice. Not everyone can.

The thing no one ever wants to say about dating is this: It’s hard to be real, sure. It’s harder to let someone else be.

No one’s time is promised. Not yours. Not Mom’s. Not mine. Not Jake’s. It’s just the way it is. We are all dying. Every day. And at some point it becomes a choice. Which one are you going to do today? Are you living or are you dying?

But being surprised by life isn't losing, it's living. It's messy and uncomfortable and complicated and beautiful. It's life, all of it. The only way to get it wrong is to refuse to play.

To meet the right person, to be with someone I want to see in the morning and naked. To not be afraid to have a bad day around them. To be happy, I guess.

My life has been filled with magical moments, I was just so busy waiting I didn’t see them when they were here.

Of course,” I say. A wink. A smile. I’m watching you, or Everything is going to be all right. Love is a net. It can catch you long after the person is no longer there.

I often wonder what our responsibility is to other people, how much we owe them. Whose job is it to look out for our own happiness. Us, or the people who love us? It's both, of course. We owe ourselves and we owe each other. But in what order?

There is nothing more terrifying than lying in a hospital bed and knowing your mom can't fix it. That she can't make it better. That no amount of bargaining with any doctor will carry you -- the both of you -- to safety. (Daphne Bell)

It's hard to hold on to people the older we get. Life looks different for everyone, and you have to keep choosing one another. You have to make a conscious effort to say over and over again, 'You.' Not everyone makes that choice. Not everyone can. (Daphne Bell)

It’s hard to hold on to people the older we get. Life looks different for everyone, and you have to keep choosing one another.

When do we stop believing in the things we do? And why does it happen so slowly instead of all at once? It

wonder if sex might express something else—some level of tenderness. If we might be able to judge not the strength of a person’s feelings but the measure of their care.

But that’s love, isn’t it? The belief in something you cannot see or touch or even explain. Like the heart itself, we just know it’s there.

We have to be cracked open sometimes. We have to be cracked open sometimes to let anything good in. What I see now, emerging in the mirror, is this one, simple truth: learning to be broken is learning to be whole.

There is nothing more terrifying than lying in a hospital bed and knowing your mom can't fix it. That she can't make it better. That no amount of bargaining with any doctor will carry you— the both of you— to safety.

I don't think the opposite of casual is serious, actually." "What is it then?" Jake looks at me. His hazel eyes appear almost gold underneath the light of the heat lamp - tiny specs of sunlight. "Depth," he says. "The opposite of casual is deep.

The truth is hard. It's complicated. It does not always follow a simple structure. It is not always convenient. That's why sometimes we do our best to leave it out of the story for as long as possible. We choose to let it linger in the corners, we don't spotlight it. But eventually, it catches up to us. Of course it does. You can run but you can't hide. (Daphne Bell)

If you never stop long enough to sink into something, then it can’t destroy you. It’s easier to climb out of a pool than a well, is the thing.

The problem with love is that it’s not enough,” she says. And then she looks up at me. Her eyes are still soft. “But it’s also nearly impossible to let go of once you’ve found it.

I often wonder what our responsibility is to other people, how much we owe them. Whose job is it to look out for our own happiness. Us, or the people who love us? It’s both, of course. We owe ourselves and each other. But in what order?

I read in a magazine one time that every woman should spend five minutes a day staring at her naked body. I’d rather hurl myself off a balcony.

courtyard

Portland?” I ask. “Seattle,” he says. “I’ve never been,” I tell him. “All I know is what I saw in Fifty Shades of Grey.” He looks at me dead-on. “The most accurate representation of our city I can think of. Great work.

Someone explain decorative pillows to me,” he says. “No one knows, everyone just has them.” “We need to start asking ourselves why.

It’s hard to hold on to people the older we get. Life looks different for everyone, and you have to keep choosing one another. You have to make a conscious effort to say, over and over again, “You.” Not everyone

I force myself to meet my own eyes in the mirror. I force myself to see the person across from me. She is wrecked and wretched and distorted. She has been pulled apart.

Here's the truth: I do want love. In some ways, I've been looking for forever. Real love, the kind that makes you want to grow old together, makes you not just unafraid of all that time with one person but electrified by it. I assumed at some point, maybe the papers would stop. But I wasn't looking forward to that day, at least not exactly. There was something in me that wanted to keep moving. If you never stop long enough to sink into something, then it can't destroy you. It's easier to climb out of a pool that a well, is the thing.

Conversations around weight bored me. There were so many more interesting things to talk about than the particular shape of someone’s body.

We live in an age of romance where you can pick from thousands of strangers on the internet. Pretty much everyone fears buyer’s remorse.

Post Ranch Inn is a forty-room hotel built into the California coastline

It’s hard to have a falling-out when one person isn’t outraged.

I wonder if I'll miss it, I think. The feeling of openness. The understanding, even buried down deep, that anything could happen. That I could bump into someone at an airport or in line at the pharmacy. That the man three stools over at the bar could be taking me home tonight. That the next great adventure was just a slip of paper away. Being single is like playing the lottery. Most of the time all you're left with from that trip to the convenience store is a bag of chips and a six-pack. But then there's always the chance. There's always the chance, however slim, that with one piece of paper you could win it all.

I often wonder what our responsibility is to other people, how much we owe them. Whose job is it to look out for our own happiness. Us, or the people who love us? It's both, of course. We owe ourselves and we owe each other. But in what order? As I look at Jake sitting across from me I feel the desire to protect him palpably - I feel it down deep in my bones. And then I consider something else, something that is hard to look at but impossible, now, to ignore. I wonder if I've been seeing that desire - honoring it, recognizing it - and calling it love. Protection and love are not the same thing. Love says, I will try and I will fail. Love says, Despite. Love says, And yet and yet and yet.

But when it came, all I felt was fear. Fear that he wouldn't be who I'd imagined. Fear that I wasn't ready. Fear that I wouldn't feel the way I was supposed to. Fear that I'd fuck up even this, this thing I was meant for. But what I was not afraid of, maybe, was that it was over. It's hard to be single, but it's also something you can get good at. And I was good at it. It's easy to love the things we are good at. Yes, I wanted epic love. Weak-in-the-knees, movie-kiss-in-the-rain epic love. What I never realized, not up until this very moment, is that I got it - everything I'd been asking for. I'd been on the back of a motorcycle in Paris and across the Golden Gate Bridge at sunrise. I'd been on the beach in Santa Monica at sunset. My life has been filled with magical moments, I was just so busy waiting I didn't see them when they were here.

There's a warmth to this relationship with Jake, a comfort that I've never really felt or known before. But sometimes I'm afraid it means I'm somehow fading - that all the bright and brilliant aspects of myself are diminishing in this cocoon. That I will not have the sparkle I once had - that all my edges are being worn down in this intimacy.

When you are ready," Jake says, his eyes on the sea, "someone is going to be very lucky." I feel the ocean exhale. Relief at relinquishing to its shores what it can no longer hold. "We'll see," I tell him. He nods. "We'll see.

We have to be cracked open sometimes. We have to be cracked open sometimes to let anything good in. What I see now, emerging in the mirror, is this one, simple truth: learning to be broken is learning to be whole. (Daphne Bell)

I often wonder what our responsibility is to other people, how much we owe them. Whose job is it to look out for our own happiness, Us, or the people who love us? It's both, of course. We owe ourselves and each other. But in what order? (Daphne Bell)

Joel and I don’t work because he’s my person, we work because I feel like I can be every bad and impossible version of myself with him. I can change. And it’s not even that I know he’ll still love me, it’s that it’s not even a question, he has.

Wasn’t the hardest part of heartbreak the unpredictability? How you could feel the most connected to a person in one moment—like being in a teardrop together, the world a watercolor outside—and like strangers in the next?

That’s the beauty of LA—it’s sprawling, searching, a horizontal buffet of experiences. In New York, everything is happening on top of everything else—energy and expectation, stacked up like dominoes. Here, you have to hunt for what comes next.

The truth is hard. It’s complicated. It does not always follow a simple structure. It is not always convenient. That’s why sometimes we do our best to leave it out of the story for as long as possible. We choose to let it linger in the corners, we don’t spotlight it. But eventually, it catches up to us. Of course it does. You can run but you can’t hide.

We were normal. And normal felt better than good. Normal felt like heaven.

[A]cknowledging a desire means acknowledging the what-if of that want. I wanted it, and that meant I was terrified—of never having it. Of never getting there.

[L]ife took a detour. And since we veered ocourse I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about what I would have wanted if we hadn’t. Does it matter? There is only this life. This very one we are living.

[L]ife took a detour. And since we veered off course I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about what I would have wanted if we hadn’t. Does it matter? There is only this life. This very one we are living.

Wasn’t the hardest part of heartbreak the unpredictability? How you could feel the most connected to a person in one moment like being in a teardrop together, the world a watercolor outside—and like strangers in the next?

Time is a funny thing. The way it doubles back and leaps forward. The way six years can pass in a blink but a moment can stretch to a decade.

But the thing is, Daphne. No one’s time is promised. Not yours. Not Mom’s. Not mine. Not Jake’s. It’s just the way it is. We are all dying. Every day. And at some point it becomes a choice. Which one are you going to do today? Are you living or are you dying?