Hazel Hayes > Quotes

“Don't be ridiculous,' said Maya, 'You can't fail at a relationship. That's like getting off of a roller coaster and saying you failed because the ride is over. Things end. That doesn't mean the experience wasn't worth it.”
― Hazel Hayes, Out of Love

“I wondered how much of the feeling of love is chemicals and cravings and dependency, and how much of the act of love is habit.”
― Hazel Hayes, Out of Love

“Crazy is the space between what they tell you and what you know is true.”
― Hazel Hayes, Out of Love

“We are both wounded in our own way and, like a pair of tectonic plates shifting over time, our wounds will gradually grate against one another’s, causing damage at a glacial pace. Neither of us will notice until it’s too late.”
― Hazel Hayes, Out of Love

“That moment is what I love most about creating something new: the idea, the spark, the beginning, where what might have been was still what might be.”
― Hazel Hayes, Out of Love

“I wonder we're all just the product of our parents' fears and failings, and their parents before them. I wonder how far back the cycle goes, whether I'm predisposed to being mentally ill, whether I have any choice in how my life unfolds, or the person that I'm destined to be. You could go mad trying to figure it out.”
― Hazel Hayes, Out of Love

“But knowing something and believing are two very different things.”
― Hazel Hayes, Out of Love

“I was supporting him when I needed support. And I was being made to feel responsible for all his problems. It was a microcosm of our entire relationship.”
― Hazel Hayes, Out of Love

“He was a lot like my father, my ex. They so often are. We choose these men, I'm told, because the pain they cause is familiar and therefore comfortable. How sad is that?”
― Hazel Hayes, Out of Love

“In the days that followed I thought about grief; how nothing and nobody can prepare you for it. People tell you their stories but until you experience it for yourself you can't possibly understand. There's no going around it. Or under or over it. You've got to go through it. It will hit you in waves so enormous that the you are smacked against the shore. It will fabric of your life, so that everything you do is stained by it; every moment, good or bad, is steeped in sadness for a while. Even the nice moments, the achievements and successes, are permeate very tinged with the knowledge that someone something is missing. And the first time that you smile or laugh, you catch yourself, because happiness feels so unfamiliar.”
― Hazel Hayes, Out of Love

“I failed,” I said finally.

“At what?”

“The relationship.”

“Don't be ridiculous,” said Maya, “You can't fail at a relation ship. That's like getting off a roller coaster and saying you failed because the ride is over. Things end. That doesn't mean the experience wasn't worth it.”

“I'm not sure it was worth it Maya. What did I get out of it?”

“You got what you needed," she said. “And then one day it wasn't what you needed any more.”
― Hazel Hayes, Out of Love

“For better or for worse, I am my mother's daughter, and her story is my story too. It's mine to carry, mine to hold - with love if I can manage it - and mine to weave into my own.”
― Hazel Hayes, Out of Love

“A breakup is like a death without a funeral.”
― Hazel Hayes, Out of Love

“The point is that for a time, I was better, but I wasn’t ‘better’. We really need a better word for better.”
― Hazel Hayes, Out of Love

“Whatever your brain tells you - that you're useless, that you're broken, that you're unfixable - just hear it, acknowledge it and try to let it pass. You are not broken just because your brain says so.”
― Hazel Hayes, Out of Love

“I pictured the couple we might someday become. And in my mind, in that moment at least, they lived happily ever after.”
― Hazel Hayes, Out of Love

“To this day I struggle to sleep when I’m expecting someone home; some part of me still won’t accept that people who leave will eventually come back.”
― Hazel Hayes, Out of Love

“Now, I'm not the kind of girl to gush over weddings but the marriage part – the idea of two flawed people being somehow perfect for each other, the odds of finding another human who can tolerate your specific brand of shit, and whose shit you can tolerate too -I think that's pretty special.”
― Hazel Hayes, Out of Love

“No matter how much I learned about death, I wanted to be able to blindly believe in something that might make me feel better, but I couldn't bring myself to do it because I feel much the same about the Church as I do about dead bodies – that they can both provide consolation, but only if you're willing to ignore some harsh truths. I find no more comfort from whispering in a dead person's ear than I do from whispering to a made-up God in the dark. Though sometimes I envy the fools who can.”
― Hazel Hayes, Out of Love

“He keeps conversation to a minimum, and responds to her questions in monosyllabic sentences. No matter what she says, or how hard she tries to get a rise out of him, he gives nothing in return, no hint of how it makes him feel. I recognise this behaviour- the conversational equivalent of playing dead - I've used these tactics myself in the past and it saddens me now to see how proficient Theo is in them; it takes a lot of practice to learn how not to provoke the bear. Watching Theo with his mother, I wonder if on some level I was drawn to him because his wounds look so similar to mine.”
― Hazel Hayes, Out of Love

“I had known he was capable of doing this. I was just too naive and too arrogant to believe he would do it to me. We all think we'll be different, don't we?”
― Hazel Hayes, Out of Love

“There's nothing like saying goodbye to a place to make you want to stay. Everywhere I look I see memories I've made, good and bad, and it hurts. I feel as though I've been afflicted by some rare disease that renders me incapable of seeing an object, place or person for what it is right now, and instead forces me to remember what it has been or wonder what it might become in my absence. It's like a kind of pre-emptive grief.”
― Hazel Hayes, Out of Love

“I loathe the assumption that I will ‘come to my senses’ someday or — worse still — that my status as non-mother means I’m somehow lacking in emotional range.”
― Hazel Hayes, Out of Love

“Rituals and routine became a safety blanket of sorts, something I could wrap around myself when things felt uncertain, which they so often did.”
― Hazel Hayes, Out of Love

“A big thing happened,' she goes on, 'and it doesn't matter who's right or who's wrong, this has changed things. They may never be the same again.”
― Hazel Hayes, Out of Love

“I know that staying with him doesn't mean I'm weak. I know it wasn't my fault. I know all this. But knowing something and believing something are two very different things. And part of me still blames myself for staying.”
― Hazel Hayes, Out of Love

“Of course, he could just tell me how he's feeling, but that would require self-awareness and communication skills, neither of which Theo possesses. So I settle for speculation. Today he's an enigma; he's gone from ignoring me to crying on me to insulting me to complimenting me to ignoring me again and I don't know what any of it means. My head hurts.”
― Hazel Hayes, Out of Love

“I'm not sure I definitely don't want children, I'm just not sure I definitely do want children, and I think that anything short of a deep desire in your mind, body, and soul to have one is not a good enough reason to do it.”
― Hazel Hayes, Out of Love

“The stories we tell ourselves often cause us more pain than the truth ever could.”
― Hazel Hayes, Better by Far

“In the days that followed, I thought about grief. How nothing and nobody can prepare you for it. People tell you their stories, but until you experience it for yourself you cannot possibly understand. There’s no going around it, or under, or over it - you’ve got to go through it. It will hit you in waves so enormous that you are smacked against the shore. It will permeate the very fabric of your life so that everything you do is stained by it. Every moment, good or bad, is steeped in sadness for a while. Even the nice moments - the achievements and successes - are tinged with the knowledge that someone or something is missing.”
― Hazel Hayes, Out of Love