"The Days of Abandonment" Quotes

I no longer fit in anywhere. Not at school, where I was surrounded by children with mothers who were alive, and not among the living, where mothers didn't die but just kept remaining in their own lives, like stubborn ghosts, as far away as possible from the rest of us.

My life was narrated for me by others. Their voices were forceful, emphatic, absolute. It had never occurred to me that my voice might be as strong as theirs.

I felt as though my children were sinking with me in the shipwreck of my life, and I couldn't save them because in saving myself I was abandoning them.

Sometimes I felt that I had found the right balance, but the next moment would tip me over to one side and I would have to struggle to keep my footing.

The days of my solitude were passing at an accelerated pace, as if the time I had left were shrinking, as if that time were a garment I had to wear to the end, and I was eager to take it off.

I was a woman who had fallen to the bottom, and I thought I was going to die there.

I had to learn to take care of myself, to be alone, to survive, to find food, to feed my children, to heal my wounds, to find shelter, to deal with the cold and the rain.

Everything was falling apart around me, and I had no power to stop it. I was just a spectator of my own life, watching it crumble into ruins.

I couldn't escape the feeling that everything was spinning out of control, that I was losing my grip on reality.

There was a darkness inside me, a void that couldn't be filled no matter how much I tried.