Meghan O'Rourke
Meghan O'Rourke
Meghan O'Rourkeis an American nonfiction writer, poet and critic...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
CountryUnited States of America
self talent conscious
My theory is this: Women falter when they're called on to be highly self-conscious about their talents. Not when they're called on to enact them.
want sometimes what-you-want
Sometimes you don't even know what you want until you find out you can't have it.
grief disruption persona
Grief is at once a public and a private experience. One's inner, inexpressible disruption cannot be fully realized in one's public persona.
grief sadness flu
I wasn't prepared for the fact that grief is so unpredictable. It wasn't just sadness, and it wasn't linear. Somehow I'd thought that the first days would be the worst and then it would get steadily better - like getting over the flu. That's not how it was.
fate thinking ideas
We have an idea - a very modern idea - that dying is undignified. But I think this is because we have the illusion that we can control our bodies and our fates.
grief people feelings
But there is a discomfort that surrounds grief. It makes even the most well-intentioned people unsure of what to say. And so many of the freshly bereaved end up feeling even more alone.
grief believe sadness
I believe in the importance of individuality, but in the midst of grief I also find myself wanting connection - wanting to be reminded that the sadness I feel is not just mine but ours.
holy disappear command
Time doesn’t obey our commands. You cannot make it holy just because it is disappearing.
spiritual grief reality
I think that grief is a profound spiritual, metaphysical, and - oddly - physical reckoning with death, which we don't understand well. It's both the process by which you relearn the world in the absence of someone who was a pillar in it, and the process in which you confront the reality of death.
fall hell seasons
Suddenly it was fall, the season of death, the anniversary of things-going-to-hell.
memories people pathways
The people we most love do become a physical part of us, ingrained in our synapses, in the pathways where memories are created.
grief transactions conditions
If the condition of grief is nearly universal, its transactions are exquisitely personal.
pain sibling grief
It's a blessing not to be alone in your grief but it's also painful to see your parents and siblings in pain.
loss lost-ones alive
One of the grubby truths about a loss is that you don't just mourn the dead person, you mourn the person you got to be when the lost one was alive. This loss might even be what affects you the most.