No One Tells You This
Glynnis MacNicol
Top 10 Best Quotes
“Every woman I knew seemed to think she was failing in some way, had been raised to believe she was lacking, and was certain someone else was doing it better. Had been told never to trust her own instincts. Taught to think of life as a solution when "done right", when in reality we existed in a kaleidoscope made of shades of gray, able to be very happy and very sad all at the same time.”
“This is why people have babies...because it's exhausting not to know what you're supposed to do next. A baby is basically a nonnegotiable map for the next two decades.”
“I had grown up thinking of life as a series of linear decisions that if made properly would land me on some distant safe shore where I would finally enjoy the fruits of my labor. Now that I was getting a glimpse of that shore I was struck by the inanity of such an equation. My mother was never going to get another chance to do anything else. She did not have the capacity for regrets, nor was she even able to enjoy the comfort of nostalgia or fond memories--her mind had leaked away too imperceptibly to allow for the clarity to look back on her life and wish she had done things differently. As I continued to worry over what sort of future I was setting myself up for, she seemed a painful cautionary tale that life was not a savings plan, accrued now for enjoyment later. I was alive now. My responsibility was to live now as fully as possible.”
“What I wanted was for there to exist some way for me to say "I'm happy and sad and not jealous" all at the same time, and also "This is a loss and is still beautiful." Maybe that was the wedding toast. "We are really the ones giving you away. And it's hard. And I will miss our life. And I am still so happy for your happiness. And so proud of you.”
“We're the first generation that can make enough of our own money to live the way we want. I feel like we have a responsibility to figure out what this means.”
“When you are your own emergency contact, you learn how not to get into an emergency if at all possible.”
“Men, it occurred to me, perhaps for the first time in my life, did not need to be a goal.”
“Instead, sitting in the dark and quiet, something quite unexpected occurred. My life, precisely as it was—the product of good and bad decisions—began to come into focus for me. Sitting there, I could see it for the first time as something I’d chosen. Something I’d built intentionally, and not simply a makeshift thing I’d constructed as a for-the-time-being existence until something came along that would make me a whole person in the eyes of the world. Once I began to see it as such, it dawned on me that I had no wish to escape from it. On the contrary: I wanted it. I was choosing my life. I was willing to risk it.”
“I had never wanted to leave my life entirely, I realized. I'd only wanted to know that I had the ability to step out of it and into something new. Now I knew. And I could do it again and again, whenever I wanted. The knowledge I possessed that freedom made me feel more powerful than I could remember feeling for a very long time.”
“We’re always drawn to the clearest articulation of what we think we lack.”
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Book Keywords:
no-kids, feminism, mindfulness, dementia, equal-rights, fear-of-the-future, alzheimers, generation-x, no-children, babies, taking-chances, living-life-to-the-fullest, baby, playing-it-safe, living-well, living-fully, not-having-a-purpose-in-life, road-map, living-in-the-moment, uncertainty, modern-woman
