“Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.” ― H.L. Mencken, Heliogabalus
I hope to be cured of you one of these days. I had to quit smoking you, drinking you, and thinking of you. It’s possible, by following the moral guidelines of our times. Like a doctor, I prescribed myself time, abstinence, and solitude.
Would you mind if I loved you for only a week? It’s neither too much nor too little, it’s enough. In a week one can gather up all love words that have ever been uttered and set them ablaze. I’m going to reignite this bonfire of burnt-out love. Because the finest gestures of love exist in the cozy silence of two lovers.
Love comes in different guises, and it dwells in every trivial conversation, from “do you want something to drink?” to “let’s go to bed.” When night falls and we are surrounded by the chaos of our friends and family, and I lean in and whisper “it’s late, let’s go home,” you know at that instant i’m saying: “I love you.”
Give me just one more week to give you all the love of the ages. You can do whatever you want with it: keep it, hold it close to your heart, or throw it away.
“I hope to be cured of you” — Jaime Sabines
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Every day we forget all sorts of things, we forget our car keys, birthdays, how to spell certain words, and we forget to pick up the dry cleaning. Nevertheless, there are some other things that cannot be easily forgotten, like the love we felt —or still feel— for that special person. We know, nothing lasts forever, and some relationships are not meant to be. One door closes and another opens, and yes, maybe we are not as happy as we thought we would be. But in the process, we need to learn to let go.
When a meaningful relationship ends, the person who was left behind decides it is time to move on, and so, he/she begins to experience the different stages of grief. At first, everything is confusing, and this is the moment when you realize love is not perfect. Then, denial comes, and you convince yourself they will be back. The third stage is when you start hating that person and everything they did, thought, or said. After hate comes bargaining, where you are even willing to beg them to come back and everything is negotiable. After a while, you start to feel guilty, you blame yourself for what happened, even if it was not your fault. Just before you let them go, you go back to feeling really depressed.
A lot of people get stuck in depression, and they often need help to come to terms with the fact that better things are on the horizon. In order to help you deal with the pain, and let that person go, we recommend you read these eight books.
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Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar — Cheryl Strayed
Cheryl is also the author of Wild, her autobiography which was adapted to film. She started writing anonymously for the column Sugar, answering questions about love and life. In this book she chose the most interesting questions and gathered them to give us her best advice. Many of her columns were based on personal experience, so, what you will read certainly worked for her. With this book, you’ll cry, laugh, and regain hope.
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What I Talk About When I Talk About Running — Haruki Murakami
This book is a memoire where Murakami shares his journey to prepare for the New York City Marathon. While he ran, he discovered himself, and made life altering decisions. His narrative will teach you that it is OK to be alone, because you get the chance to know yourself better.
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Why We Broke Up — Daniel Handler
A couple, Min and Ed, are about to break up. Min decides it is a good idea to give Ed a letter explaining to him the reasons why their relationship didn’t last. The book was illustrated by Maira Kalman.
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Eat, Pray, Love — Elizabeth Gilbert
Elizabeth decides she need to restart her life, even though she is married, and has a successful job. She leaves everything behind and travels to three different countries where she will discover divine cuisines, inner peace, and most of all, love.
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Mrs. Dalloway — Virigina Woolf
The fourth novel written by Woolf, details one day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway in post World War I England, where she is getting ready to host a party. The reader will go back and forth in time to understand Clarissa’s life. Until this day, Mrs. Dalloway is still considered to be one of the best novels in the English canon.
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Tender Is the Night — F. Scott Fitzgerald
This is a novel that resembles Fitzgerald’s life and relationship with his wife Zelda. She was admitted to a Baltimore institution to treat her schizophrenia and in the meantime Fitzgerald rented a villa called La Paix in a suburb in Maryland to write this novel. This is the story of a couple, Dick and Nicole Diver on the French Riviera in the late 1920s. Through Fitzgerald’s narrative you’ll learn people can change and that there is no use in living in the past.
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Stag’s Leap — Sharon Olds
This book was written by the Pulitzer winning Sharon Olds. Through her poems, Olds shares her broken heart with her readers, after she was married for 30 years.
“Even when it’s I who am escaped from,
I am half on the side of the leaver. It’s so quiet,
and empty, when he’s left. I feel like a landscape,
a ground without a figure.” — Stag’s Leap (fragment) by Sharon Olds
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Mist — Miguel de Unamuno
This book is perfect for those who feel lost and are wandering around aimlessly. Mist is the story of an insecure man who is worried about his destiny and mortality.
