—MONDAY YOU CAN FALL APART, TUESDAY I DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU

 

 

BEAUTIFUL WORLD, WHERE ARE YOU / SALLY ROONEY

 

 

Sometime when I get really sad and depressed, I lie in bed and think about you. I don’t mean in a sexual way. I just think about the goodness of you as a person. And since you like me, or you love me, I must be okay.

 

He might be losing his will to live a bit. But low self-esteem, I don’t think so.

 

They were together again, it did not matter much now, what they said or did.

 

That’s something he said. I’m sorry I couldn’t be what you wanted.

 

In a funny way maybe it’s not important to get along, and more important just to love each other.

 

When I wrote books, in a way it was like a love affair, or an infatuation, except that it only involved myself and it was all within my own control. It was like God had put his hand on my head and filled me with the most intense desire I had ever felt, not desire for another person, but desire to bring something into being that had never existed before.

 

When it comes to putting something at the center of your life, God strikes me as a good option—better at least than making up stories about people who don’t exist, or falling in love with people who hate me. It’s still better to love someone than no one.

 

Anyone can hurt anyone if they go out of their way.

 

And what do we have now instead? Nothing. And we hate people for making mistakes so much more than we love them for doing good that the easiest way to live is to do nothing, say nothing, love no one.

 

I suppose I was seeing, but not looking.

 

Do you feel, when someone does something nice for you, it’s like you’re so grateful that you actually start feeling bad?

 

I have never been very good at it, he remarked. Being looked after.

 

He saw her on O’Connel Street a few weeks later, all the way across the road, heading toward the river, and it was like watching his life walk away from him.

 

I had to empty my life out first, and begin from there.

 

Whenever something good happens to me I always find myself thinking: I wonder how long it will be until this turns out badly.

 

Here I am writing another email about sex and friendship. What else is there to live for?

 

Wherever I go, you are with me, and as long as we both live the world will be beautiful to me.

 

What do you want from me? Please, God, show me what you want.