Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? - Jeanette Winterson

She filled the phone box.  She was out of scale, larger than life.  She was like a fairy story where size is approximate and unstable.  She loomed up.  She expanded.

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There are so many things that we can't say, because they are too painful.  We hope that the things we can say will soothe the rest, or appease it in some way.  Stories are compensatory.  The world is unfair, unjust, unknowable, out of control.

When we tell a story we exercise control, but in such a way as to leave a gap, an opening.  It is a version, but never the final one.  And perhaps we hope that the silences will be heard by someone else, and the story can continue, can be retold.

When we write we offer the silence as much as the story.  Words are the part of silence that can be spoken.

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Pursuing happiness, and I did, and I still do, is not at all the same as being happy - which I think is fleeting, dependent on circumstances, and a bit bovine.

If the sun is shining, stand in it - yes, yes, yes.  Happy time are great, but happy times pass - they have to - because time passes.

The pursuit of happiness is more elusive; it is life-long, and it is not goal-centred.

What you are pursuing is meaning - a meaningful life.  there's the hap - the fate, the draw that is yours, and it isn't fixed, but changing the couse of the stream, or dealing new cards, whatever metaphor you want to use - that's going to take a lot of energy.  There are times when it will go so wrong that you will barely be alive, and times when you realise that being barely alive, on your own terms is better than living a bloated half-life on someone else's terms.

The pursuit isn't all or nothing - it's all AND nothing.  Like all Quest Stories.

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And here is the shock - when you risk it, when you do the right thing, when you arrive at the borders of commonsense and cross into unknown territory, leaving behind you all the familiar smells and lights, then you do not experience great joy and huge energy.

You are unhappy.  Things get worse.

It is a time of mourning.  Loss.  Fear.  We bullet ourselves through with questions.  And then we feel shot and wounded.

And then all the cowards come out and say, 'See, I told you so.'

In fact, they told you nothing.

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Yes, the past is another country, but one that we can visit, and once there we can bring back the things we need.

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At that moment a rival group of carol singers arrived at the front door - probably the Salvation Army, but Mrs W was having none of it.  She opened the front door and shouted, 'Jesus is here.  Go away.'

'That was a bit harsh, Mum.'

'I have had a lot to put up with," she said, looking meaningfully at me. 'I know the Bible tells us to turn the other cheek but there are only so many cheeks in a day.'

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I was thinking about suicide because it had to be an option.  I had to be able to think about it and on good days I did so because it gave me back a sense of control - for one last time I would be in control.

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Our madness-measure is always changing.  Probably we are less tolerant of madness now than at any period in history.  There is no place for it.  Crucially, there is no time for it.

Going mad takes time.   Getting sane takes time.

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And I have loved most extravagantly where my love could not be returned in any sane and steady way.

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But I did not know how to love.  If I could have faced that simple fact about myself, and the likelihood that someone with my story (my stories, both real and invented) would have big problems with love, then, then, what?

Listen, we are human beings.  Listen, we are inclined to love.  Love is there, but we need to be taught how.  we want to stand upright, we want to walk, but someone needs to hold our hand and balance us a bit, and guide us a bit, and scoop us up when we fall.

Listen, we fall.  Love is there but we have to learn it - and its shapes and its possibilities.  I taught myself to stand on my own two feet, but I could not teach myself how to love.

We have a capacity for language.  We have a capacity for love.  We need other people to release those capacities.

In my work I found a way to talk about love - and that was real.  I had not found a way to love.   That was changing.

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'The things that I regret in my life are not errors of judgement but failures of feelings."

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Happy endings are only a pause.  There are three kinds of big endings: Revenge.  Tragedy.  Forgiveness.  Revenge and Tragedy often happen together.  Forgiveness redeems the past.  Forgiveness unblocks the future.