Wow. I used to have all kinds of quotes memorized - things that helped me during my dating years. Cheesy stuff like, "If you love them, let them go...if they come back to you, they're yours. If they don't, they never were." I know. Cheeseball central. Or, "You learn and you learn. With every goodbye, you learn."
The dating years were hard on me. :)
I don't often have quotes that pop into my mind lately, although this one that I already shared with you in this post keeps coming to mind for me: "The best times of my life, the times that have passed by me the most quickly, were the times when the roses grew wild."
I wasn't an enormous fan of the book it comes from, Tending Roses - as Pete would say, it's "contrived." It's a book that aims at teaching us a lesson, which I always find really annoying. Here's my feeling on writing - write a fantastic story with interesting, multi-dimensional characters, and let the readers take away the lessons that they personally want to take away from it. That's the beauty of literature. It's a very subjective experience to read. This is why I hated The Alchemist and The Peacegiver. And why I hate country music.
However, that quote really stood out to me. It reminds me to just...let the dishes sit in the sink while I play with my kids. Because soon they'll be gone. Not the dishes. The kids. They're growing up too quickly already. I need to just grasp onto these moments with them and enjoy them as much as possible and worry about the cleanliness of the house later.
We saw your parents again! I seriously love them. Can't believe you are moving to CHINA!!! My family has a lot of history there... We are probably heading out that way for your sisters wedding and I was so looking forward to meeting you in real life. It will happen some day! I am so jealous of your new adventure.
ReplyDeleteI whole heartedly agree with you about the contrived literature thing. I dislike any song, story, quote, etc. that is written to make people cry or that tries to force a lesson on you.
ReplyDeleteI like the quote that you shared, but I have to admitt that I am not a "quotey" kind of person. I prefer uthentic and unique thoughts ... like the ones you share on your blog all the time :-) You are a very wise and hilarious woman!
So funny - when I first started reading your post - I knew you were going to say something about the "set it free" quote. I totally think of you when I hear that one!!!
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