Realise Whos There For You Quotes

It was startling and humbling to realise how much time you could spend with people to whom you meant so little and vice versa

You see what your mother-in-law hasn’t yet realised is that she’s the one who needs to hold out the olive branch, not you, because she’s the one who’s going to want to come around more and more in the future to see her grand-kids. SHE needs to make friends with YOU, not the other way around.

And then you’ll catch yourself thinking about something or someone who has no connection with the past. Someone who’s only yours. And you’ll realize… that this is where your life is.

It goes something like this. You'’re walking along minding your own business, or you'’re on the underground or you’'re on a bus or something, but generally you’'re not paying much attention. And suddenly you look around and see all these other people and think, ‘Hey, they can look at me and see me and I can see in my mind what I think they see, and when I’'m gone they’'re going to keep on walking and they’r'e going to go and live their lives, and their thoughts are going to be just like mine, but different, but real and solid and alive and full of feeling and confusion and colour just like life, and, hey, isn’t that cool!’ And it is. And roughly around this time you'’re going to notice that you can feel trains under your feet or pipes bubbling, and you can hear the sound of traffic and voices and stuff; and then you’'ll probably look up at the things around you and think, ‘Those buildings with the lights on look almost alive, like giant trees lit up with their own constellation of stars in every window,’ or maybe not if you'’re underground; and you’'ll realise that you can see the city all around, and it’'s so full of lives and life, and they'’re all buzzing around you, and every single individual is real and alive and passionate and full of mystery, and it'’s not just Joe Bloggs walking by who’'s like this, but that every part of the city is crawling with life. And you'’ll think, ‘Hey, that'’s pretty damn sweet, everywhere I look there'’s life,’ and roughly around that point you'’ll realise you can hear rats and pigeons and thoughts and spells and colours and electricity, and that’'s probably when you started going a bit mad.

I couldn’t define crazy, because there’s too many interpretations. And I couldn’t define lonely, because it’s too big an emptiness. I don’t understand all the things I am, and I sure as hell don’t know how to explain them to you. But depression. Depression is only as complex as the person who’s defining it. it’s whatever I choose to make it.” “And what have you chosen to make it?” “Simple. I think the more you try to convince yourself that you don’t need something, the more you need it. And I’ve only recently realised that needing is something I can survive. Like pain. It’s surprisingly bearable.” “So, where’s the line? Between what’s bearable and what isn’t?” “I guess the line is wherever you draw it.

Grandma I’ve been writing in names that are missing, the ones I know, which is by no means all of them. That’s what happens, you see. First, there’s no need to write who they are, because everyone knows that’s Great-Aunt Sophia or Cousin Rudi, and then only some of us know, and already we’re asking, ‘Who’s that with Gertrude?’ and ‘I don’t remember this man with the little dog’, and you don’t realise how fast they’re disappearing from being remembered … Wilma It’s still an amazing thing to me, to know the faces of the dead! I can remember Grandpa Jakobovicz’s tobacco-stained whiskers, but his wife died giving birth to Poppa before there were photographs, so now no one knows what she looked like any more than if she’d been some kind of rumour. Grandma Everyone was mad to have a photograph when I was a girl, it was like a miracle and you had to go to a photographer’s to pose for him … wedding couples, soldiers in their first uniforms, children in front of painted scenery … and, always, women dressed up for the carnival ball, posing with a Greek pillar. Later, when we had a camera, there were too many pictures to keep in the album, holiday pictures with real scenery, swimming pictures, pictures of children in dirndl pinafores and lederhosen, like little Austrians. Here’s a couple waving goodbye from the train, but who are they? No idea! That’s why they’re waving goodbye. It’s like a second death, to lose your name in a family album.

And then I want a big hug from all of you while we watch that Disney movie with that person who’s stuck working and working and working, and then they realise they can live out their dreams instead.” “Cinderella?” Mateo guessed and I shook my head with a frown. “You know the one. Where they get to go out at night doing all the things they really want to do, but they can’t tell anyone.” “The Incredibles?” Mateo guessed again. “Nooo.” I threw my head back against the cushion behind me with a huff. “Oh, you mean American Psycho,” Niall realised and I perked up. “Yes! That one. With the stabby man living his dreams,” I said with a grin.

Chapter 15 Grace One morning, after an uneventful sojourn at the bath house. The ward received a rare visit from the Physician Superintendent. He walked into the day room accompanied by the charge nurse just as me and Art were preparing the patients for lunch. “Do you say Grace before meals?” inquired the Superintendent of the charge. “Yes Sir.” The charge was well aware of the hospital rules and snapped almost to attention in reply. His response was true. Our charge, being a stickler for the rule book of the institution, always insisted on saying grace. The order was; “Stand behind your chairs.” Usually bellowed by the deputy although Art and I occasionally got the chance. The seventy odd patients milling round in the dining gallery would stand behind their chairs in absolute silence. Years of institutional living had taught them that meals would only be served after a period of absolute silence, followed by grace. The charge, not leaving his chair, would open his office door and poking his head out would call. “For whayouare aboutorecieve maythelor mayoutruly thankful.” To which the patients would dutifully chorus “Amen” and sit down to eat. On this day the “Big Chief” was present and Art and I could tell things were going to be different. “Stand behind your chairs.” Was said. Nothing happened.—Louder, “Stand behind your chairs.” Nothing.—Art bellowed “Stand behind your chairs.” The effect was electric and the mass moved into its lunchtime position of silence standing behind their chairs in the dining room. The charge had slipped into his long white nursing coat. He was going to assist with lunch. He moved away from the side of the Physician Superintendent and stood in the centre of the dining room. There he adopted a posture which he adjudged spiritually appropriate. Hands clasped in front of him, eyes lowered, he bowed his head. Not wishing to get on the wrong side of our boss. Art and I stood one either side of him and followed suit. Absolute silence reigned. Before the charge could proceed any further with this charade the ward kitchen door opened to reveal Benny and Jimmy. They were two long standing ward worker patients who’s job it was to prepare the plates on the servery ready for the meal. Patients assisting with serving meals was against the “rules” and Benny realising that the Superintendent was present blurted out. “For Christ’s sake shut that bloody door.” Seventy nine patients solemnly responded with “Amen.” and promptly sat down in eager anticipation of their dinner. “I see.” said the Physician Superintendent and walked poker faced from the dining room with the red faced charge trailing in his wake. We never said Grace again after that.

I feel sorry for you, Task.’ ‘Don’t bother.’ ‘No, not because you’ve suffered, or you’re cursed, but because you don’t realise.’ He threw her a quizzical look. Lesky reached out a hand and placed it on his stone. He tensed, but felt nothing, just the warmth of her skin. ‘You don’t realise how human you are. All of us. Alabast, Ellia, me, Huff, even you, with a mind made out of stone. We all walk around pretendin’ we’re not broken in some way. Most spend their lives hiding it. But we are broken. And you know what? That’s fine. In fact, it’s perfect because it’s imperfect. Each crack, each blemish, each scar, whether of the skin or in the mind, they make us whole. We’re made through livin’, not by bein’ born. What we learn is what shapes us. Some choose a friendly shape, others somethin’ more jagged and sharp. That is what it means to be human, Task. We can choose. You say your master made a mistake? Made you broken? I think he made the finest golem there is. One who’s more than stone, not just some mindless machine. One who can make actually make a choice for himself. One who’s got a conscience. A heart.

When I talk about connection to oneself, I’m talking about something very simple. It’s an organism’s capacity to know what it feels and to be able to respond with emotions that are appropriate to the present moment. Without that capacity, you can’t survive. If an animal does not have have a connection to itself and doesn’t know what it feels, it can’t respond to threats – it’s going to be dead. The same with human beings in evolution. When I talk about being connected to ourselves, I’m talking about actually knowing what we feel and experience in a given moment, and being able to interpret that appropriately. Without that capacity, we’re lost. We were born with that capacity – you’ve never met an infant who’s not connected with its gut feelings. By the time you talk to adults, you find many people who even if they have their gut feelings, they ignore them. Something happens between infancy and adulthood that disconnects us. What that is, is our need for acceptance by our environment. If our environment cannot support our gut feelings and our emotions, then the child, in order to ‘belong’ and ‘fit in’ will automatically, unwittingly and unconsciously, suppress their emotions and their connections to themselves, for the sake of staying connected to the nurturing environment, without which the child cannot survive. A lot of children are in this dilemma – ‘can I feel and express what I feel or do I have to suppress that in order to be acceptable, to be a good kid, to be a nice kid?’ Furthermore, if the parents themselves are not in touch with their feelings, they can’t tolerate the child’s feelings because they threaten them. The parent reacts against the child for having anger – and the child learns, I mustn’t express what I feel, because I have to belong to my parents. If I don’t who will protect me and nurture me? Automatically we disconnect from ourselves, in order to continue to be looked after. It’s a tragic choice. It’s not even a choice – the child’s not aware of making a choice. It’s an automatic process. Then we get into adulthood, and all of a sudden we say ‘I don’t know who I am’. Especially people in mid-life – they realise that they’ve been living lives that were not their own lives at all. They did it all because they got disconnected.