Sally Rooney - Tumblr Posts
At this point you have to understand, he said, I was used to everyone seeing me as a burden. Like my family and Melissa, they all wanted me to get better, but it’s not as if they enjoyed my company. In as much as I was functioning again, I still felt like this very worthless, pathetic person, you know, like I was just a waste of everyone’s time. So that’s kind of where I was at when I met you.
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney (via wholesomeobsessive)
Nick and I fell somewhere between the two of them, more comfortable with critique than endorsement.
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney (via wholesomeobsessive)
That night I decided to start reading over my old instant message conversations with Bobbi. I’d taken on a similar project once before, shortly after our break-up, and now I had whole additional years of messages to read. It comforted me to know that my friendship with Bobbi wasn’t confined to memory alone, and that textual evidence of her past fondness for me would survive her actual fondness if necessary. This had been foremost in my mind at the time of the break-up also, for obvious reasons. It was important to me that Bobbi would never be able to deny that at one point she had liked me very much.
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney (via wholesomeobsessive)
Melissa said she didn’t doubt that we were all a part of the problem, but it was difficult to see how exactly, and seemingly impossible to do anything about it without first comprehending that. I said I sometimes felt drawn to disclaiming my ethnicity, as if, though I was obviously white, I wasn’t ‘really’ white, like other white people. No offence, Bobbi said, but that’s honestly very unhelpful. I’m not offended, I said. I agree.
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney (via wholesomeobsessive)
But I always said I wanted him to be happy, & now I know it was true all along. I do want that. Even when it looks like this I still want it.
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney (via wholesomeobsessive)
I had the sense that something in my life had ended, my image of myself as a whole or normal person maybe. I realised my life would be full of mundane physical suffering, and that there was nothing special about it. Suffering wouldn’t make me special, and pretending not to suffer wouldn’t make me special. Talking about it, or even writing about it, would not transform the suffering into something useful. Nothing would.
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney (via wholesomeobsessive)
I thought about all the things I had never told Nick about myself, and I started to feel better then, as if my privacy extended all around me like a barrier protecting my body. I was a very autonomous and independent person with an inner life that nobody else had ever touched or perceived.
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney (via wholesomeobsessive)
I think it would kill you, said Bobbi. To admit that you needed help from some touchy-feely psychology graduate. Probably a Labour voter. But maybe it would kill you in a good way.
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney (via wholesomeobsessive)
I was striving to love everyone, which meant I tried to stay quiet.
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney (via wholesomeobsessive)
I looked out the window at the station. I had the sense that something in my life had ended, my image of myself as a whole or normal person maybe. I realised my life would be full of mundane physical suffering, and that there was nothing special about it. Suffering wouldn’t make me special, and pretending not to suffer wouldn’t make me special. Talking about it, or even writing about it, would not transform the suffering into something useful. Nothing would.
S. Rooney, Conversations with Friends (via wholesomeobsessive)
You underestimate your own power so you don’t have to blame yourself for treating other people badly. You tell yourself stories about it. Oh well, Bobbi’s rich, Nick’s a man, I can’t hurt these people. If anything they’re out to hurt me and I’m defending myself.
Sally Rooney, Conversations with Friends (via wholesomeobsessive)
Instead of thinking gigantic thoughts, I tried to focus on something small, the smallest thing I could think of. Someone once made this pew I’m sitting on, I thought. Someone sanded the wood and varnished it. Someone carried it into the church. Someone laid the tiles on the floor, someone fitted the windows. Each brick was placed by human hands, each hinge fitted on each door, every road surface outside, every bulb in every streetlight. And even things built by machines were really built by human beings, who built the machines initially. And human beings themselves, made by other humans, struggling to create happy children and families. Me, all the clothing I wear, all the language I know. Who put me here in this church, thinking these thoughts? Other people, some I know very well and others I have never met. Am I myself, or am I them? Is this me, Frances? No, it is not me. It is the others. Do I sometimes hurt and harm myself, do I abuse the unearned cultural privilege of whiteness, do I take the labor of others for granted, have I sometimes exploited a reductive iteration of gender theory to avoid serious moral engagement, do I have a troubled relationship with my body, yes. Do I want to be free of pain and therefore also demand that others live free of pain, the pain that is mine and therefore theirs, yes, yes. When I opened my eyes I felt that I had understood something, and the cells of my body seemed to light up like millions of glowing points of contact, and I was aware of something profound. Then I stood up from my seat and collapsed.
Conversations with Friends, Sally Rooney (via wholesomeobsessive)
He says he still loves me, but if he doesn’t do what I say any more, then how can I believe him?
Sally Rooney, Conversations With Friends (via wholesomeobsessive)
He wanted to reassure me, I could tell, but I wasn’t going to let him. People were always wanting me to show some weakness so they could reassure me. It made them feel worthy, I knew all about that.
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney (via wholesomeobsessive)
For a while I stood there just looking at myself and feeling my repulsion get deeper and deeper, as if I was experimenting to see how much I could feel.
Conversations with Friends by Sally Rooney (via wholesomeobsessive)
Bobbi told me she thought I didn’t have a ‘real personality’, but she said she meant it as a compliment. Mostly I agreed with her assessment. At any time I felt I could do or say anything at all, and only afterwards think: oh, so that’s the kind of person I am
Sally Rooney, ‘Conversations with Friends’ (via wholesomeobsessive)
Just done seeing Normal People... It was wonderful, I think I'm gonna see it again.. it was a roller coaster of emotions.. I've read it before but it's been a long time so I had totally forgotten what it was like.. A few lines from the book- I' m not a religious person but I do sometimes think God made you for me. Generally I find men are a lot more concerned with limiting the freedoms of women than exercising personal freedom for themselves. She believes Marianne lacks ‘warmth’, by which she means the ability to beg for love from people who hate her. Marianne, he said, I'm not a religious person but I do sometimes think God made you for me. I don't know what's wrong with me, says Marianne. I don't know why I can't be like normal people.
Marianne had the sense that her real life was happening somewhere very far away, happening without her, and she didn't know if she would ever find out where it was or become part of it.
Sally Rooney, Normal People