I wondered why I was so startled by the encounter when there was something that seemed utterly inevitable about the moment. Not in any grand, destined sense; just in the quiet, stubborn way that unfinished business has of imposing its will on the unwilling.

Emily Giffin

Categorized in : Stubborn Encounters Unfinished Business

You can only control your own actions. Not other people’s reactions.

Emily Giffin

reactions action people

Love and friendship. They are what make us who we are, and what can change us, if we let them.

Emily Giffin

love-and-friendship who-we-are ifs

...love is the sum of our choices, the strength of our commitments, the ties that bind us together.

Emily Giffin

ties love-is commitment

Maybe that's what it all comes down to. Love, not as a surge of passion, but as a choice to commit to something, someone, no matter what obstacles or temptations stand in the way. And maybe making that choice, again and again, day in and day out, year after year, says more about love than never having a choice to make at all.

Emily Giffin

passion love years

A son is a son 'til he gets a wife, but a daughter is a daughter all her life.

Emily Giffin

family daughter son

I think of how each person in a marriage owes it to the other to find individual happiness, even in a shared life. That this is the only way to grow together, instead of apart.

Emily Giffin

individual-happiness relationship thinking

Recognizing that there is more heartbreak in continuous disappointment than a void.

Emily Giffin

recognizing void disappointment

But now we have time. Endless time stretches before us.

Emily Giffin

endless-time endless

My head spins as I glance away, refusing to get sucked back into his gaze when so much is at risk.

Emily Giffin

glances risk

In days that follow, I discover that anger is easier to handle than grief.

Emily Giffin

easier anger grief

Things certainly aren't the way you imagine them when you're a kid and dreaming big dreams about what your life as a grown-up will look like.

Emily Giffin

dream kids looks

Things are what they are and there's no point dwelling in the past or wondering what could have been.

Emily Giffin

dwelling wonder past

Love is seldom—almost never—an even proposition. Someone always loves more.

Emily Giffin

propositions love-is

But I am learning that perfection isn't what matters. In fact, it's the very thing that can destroy you if you let it.

Emily Giffin

what-matters perfection inspirational

It's a funny thing - when I'm crazed with work, spending time with my children relaxes me. Yet, at the end of a long weekend with them, the very thing I need to relax is a little work and time away from them!

Emily Giffin

funny-things weekend children

Although I'm sure there are plenty of tall, gorgeous, life-of-the-party guys who are also true to their wives, I happen to believe that a disproportionate number of them are cheaters.

Emily Giffin

cheater party believe

No, scratch the word "career." Careers are for people who wish to advance. I only want to survive, draw a paycheck.

Emily Giffin

careers wish people

He nods, as if to acknowledge that endings are almost always a little sad, even when there is something to look forward to on the other side.

Emily Giffin

sides littles looks

And like a favorite old movie, sometimes the sameness in a friend is what you like the most about her.

Emily Giffin

old-movie sameness sometimes

I miss him in so many ways, but right now I miss him in the way you always miss someone when you're single among a room full of couples.

Emily Giffin

missing-someone couple i-miss-you