1
My mother is a firm believer in the long pause, useful in interrogations, proclamations of truth, and the occasional cutting dead of someone without their knowing it.Suzanne Finnamore
2
Delusion detests focus and romance provides the veil.Suzanne Finnamore
3
Any way I slice reality it comes out poorly, and I feel an urge to not exist, something I have never felt before; and now here it comes with conviction, almost panic. I mentally bless and exonerate anyone who has kicked a chair out from beneath her or swallowed opium in large chunks. My mind has met their environment, here in the void. I understand perfectly.Suzanne Finnamore
4
I mentally bless and exonerate anyone who has kicked a chair out from beneath her or swallowed opium in large chunks. My mind has met their environment, here in the void. I understand perfectly.Suzanne Finnamore
5
In so many senseless deaths, beauty is to blame.Suzanne Finnamore
6
Why is edamame always ready to expire? It´s so urgent for a vegetable. Edamame. It sounds like an assisted form of suicide. Is there an advertising concept in this?Suzanne Finnamore
7
I used to loathe ambivalence now I adore it. Ambivalence is my new best friend.Suzanne Finnamore
8
So many events and moments that seemed insignificant add up. I remember how for the last Valentine´s Day, N gave flowers but no card. In restaurants, he looked off into the middle distance while my hand would creep across the table to hold his. He would always let go first. I realize I can´t remember his last spontaneous gesture of affection.Suzanne Finnamore
9
The snag about marriage is, it isn´t worth the divorce.Suzanne Finnamore
10
They feel life is for the taking, and that everyone deserves happiness no matter what the cost. I must remember these tricks if I ever decide to have my soul surgically removed.Suzanne Finnamore
11
Someday I will have revenge. I know in advance to keep this to myself, and everyone will be happier. I do understand that I am expected to forgive N and his girlfriend in a timely fashion, and move on to a life of vegetarian cooking and difficult yoga positions and self-realization, and make this so much easier and more pleasant for all concerned.Suzanne Finnamore
12
Surprises, I feel now, are primarily a form of violence.Suzanne Finnamore
13
I love you as the mother of my child": the kiss of death. Mother of His Child: demotion. I am beginning to see this truism: Mothers are not always wives. I have been stripped of a piece of self.Suzanne Finnamore
14
He announces that lately he keeps losing things. "Like your wife and child, " I want to say, but don´t. At fourty, I´ve learned not to say everything clever, not to score every point.Suzanne Finnamore
15
How do you know? How best to ensure his nervous breakdown?" I ask." Keep going, " Christian says. "Just go on as if nothing has happened. We all hate that.Suzanne Finnamore
16
God is great and God is good, " Lisa says. "But where are the Apache attack helicopters when you need them?Suzanne Finnamore
17
Take me now, God! " I shout to the inky sky. "I´m ready."" You´re not ready. You´re not even divorced yet, " Bunny says. "You cannot die married to that man.Suzanne Finnamore
18
How can I grieve what is still in motion?" I ask her. "Shoes are still dropping all over the place. I´m not kidding, " I say. "It´s Normandy out there.Suzanne Finnamore
19
I am replete with stamina in finding out every single fact I can about this whole affair. Yet, I think, do I want to pull that thread? Do I want to unleash the truth, unravel deceit, and kill reality as I´ve known it? It is irreparable, if I do, from the moment we met until now. It is long. If I discover too much that is false about what I thought my past was, Time will be skewed even further. I already have a poor connection with the present. Example: I have no sense of what day it is. It´s better. .Suzanne Finnamore
20
How could you do that to me?" I repeat. I don´t have to itemize. He knows what I speak of. Eventually N produces three answers, in thisSuzanne Finnamore
21
Yes. THANK YOU. And say hello to Judas Iscariot.Suzanne Finnamore
22
I saw my reflection in their eyes, but not the men themselves, not clearly. This preserved the idea that all intelligent and even vaguely attractive men were essentially good. Delusion detest focus and romance provides the veil.Suzanne Finnamore
23
The Betty Lady explains love and splitting up: "It´s like playing the shell game with Jesus. You can´t figure anything out; it´s best not to try. You´ll just humiliate yourself.Suzanne Finnamore
24
I review what I know once again, confronting the monolith now alien and almost unconnected to me: my marriage.Suzanne Finnamore
25
I know my vision is impaired and cannot be trusted with even the simplest tasks, much less dating. Not that I´ve come within talon distance of a man.Suzanne Finnamore
26
I´ve blown it, the whole grisly charade.Suzanne Finnamore
27
I feel incendiary, a wildfire. My spirit licks at the gates of a very elaborate, customized, and distracting emotional Hades.Suzanne Finnamore
28
I´m just not sending out the right vibe lately. Perhaps the fact that I wear stained sweatpants and free T-shirts is holding me back. I just can´t seem to get back into the intelligent-slut-for-hire outfits that lure men even shoes with laces evade me. Plus my hair is Fran Lebowitz-esque. I think my eyes are getting closer together. I don´t know.Suzanne Finnamore
29
It had all seemed as inevitable as sunset. Instead it was the beauty of the sun glinting upon the scythe.Suzanne Finnamore
30
For me, it´s sloth, " I say. "Hedonistic sloth and escapism.Suzanne Finnamore
31
Naturally, I do blame Françoise. I blame her for having N in the first place. She was young, she was beautiful, she was married to a doctor, and she was intelligent. She could have abstained from producing her first son. It was wrong on a variety of levels.Suzanne Finnamore
32
Although I notice there is never a truly good time to have a nice long chat with one´s mother-in-law, unless you are having an extraordinary life and marriage and your mother-in-law is, say, Maureen Dowd, or Indira Gandhi. Someone of that ilk.Suzanne Finnamore
33
This does not escape my notice, it is a context. I resent the fact of a context; my social status has shifted and no one is going to acknowldege it, that´s certain. I´m expected to be Brave and Rise Above. I dress for the role; I must look far better now that I did when I was married. I must look pulled together into a nice tight Hermès knot of self-containment. I don´t make the rules; I just do my best to follow them.Suzanne Finnamore
34
There is that, and there is also the Irreconcilable Differences line. It seems so catchall, so vague. You could say that about anyone, any man and woman at all. Jesus and Mary Magdalene: "Irreconcilable Differences." JFK and Jackie, anyone at all. It´s built into the man-woman thing. What kind of paltry reason is that? "Insanity" is another box to be checked on the divorce petition, the only alternative to "Irreconcilable Differences." I would like to check it.Suzanne Finnamore
35
To keep myself from harming or calling N and to stave off the rage and despair, I focus on my extraordinary son, drink midrange Chardonnay every night after he is asleep, and make a barrage of late-night mail-order retail purchases placed from the couch. The couch has officially become my second battle station. I am angry and I have credit And I´m all blackened inside; I should wear a pointy witch hat around Larkspur as I go to the bank and drop A off at day care. It would be more honest. .Suzanne Finnamore
36
Already things are changing; it´s starting with small shit but oh it´s starting, the change, the irrevocable, impossible change.Suzanne Finnamore
37
Such silence has an actual sound, the sound of disappearance.Suzanne Finnamore
38
I was steeped in denial, but my body knew.Suzanne Finnamore
39
A heart can stop beating for a while, one can still live.Suzanne Finnamore
40
I know one thing about men, " Bunny says with finality, leaving the room to check on A. "They never die when you want them to.Suzanne Finnamore
41
He left a bit too easily and with obvious relief. His feet were swift and sure on the muddy path.Suzanne Finnamore
42
I am going insane. Yes. That is what´s happening. Good. Insane.Suzanne Finnamore
43
Bushwhacked, I examine my hands. Same hands. Rings still there but no longer valid.Suzanne Finnamore
44
I have a new mantra, which I chant softly to myself: "Oh My God Oh My God.Suzanne Finnamore
45
It´s like watching someone do a triple backflip dismount and land on two feet, solid, arms splayed in the air. I know I could never do it, don´t even know where I would begin to learn, but some people are built for it. He was handcrafted to leave, had practiced on other women since adolescence. I was one of an unnumbered series.Suzanne Finnamore
46
I travel back in time, falling back into what I know for certain, the historical data I cling to in order to not go mad, not assume I made a suicidal and well-informed error in marrying this man.Suzanne Finnamore
47
I am not ready to think of him as either insane or evil, to consider in full how I could love and have a child with such a person. I am not ready to think about anything, except ways in which this may still be averted.Suzanne Finnamore
48
I played possum. I did this, as the possum does, out of fear.Suzanne Finnamore
49
The whole world seems tilted, my inner ear displaced by a hole where my spouse used to be.Suzanne Finnamore
50
My mind floats like ash. I blame myself most cruelly.Suzanne Finnamore