"Pain demands to be felt..."

 

And other fun quotes have littered my brain since 9 am this morning. I assure you, there are more positive quotes to come from The Fault in Our Stars but that is one that just truly grabbed me, and held me tightly as I skimmed the list of quotes provided by friend, Cearrah. She has been ,rationed a time or two in my writings. Catholic best friend extraordinare, English major, logophile, Sister, and all around life-changing friend I couldn't live without. How was that for a compliment? 

Now, TFOS, as we will not be referring to it as for short-hands sake, is breathtaking. I read it lived the summer, after purchasing it on a shopping date with the afore-mentioned Cearrah. I devoured the book in a night and was unable to truly handle the storm that occurred because of John Green. I was so conflicts; I have read him before, An Abundance of Katherines was read with fond memories and smile, Paper Towns was worthy of being owned, and Looking for Alaska...need I say more? 

But this, this was a very different side of Mr. Green. For goodness sakes, his protagonist was a snarky sixteen year old with metatisized cancer in her lungs. That's not something you read about every day. And her favorite book does not even have a conclusion. It just ends, mid-sentence. How unbearably tragic is that? 

The entire novel is worthy of one block quotation- the outlook on life held by Hazel and Augustus, our two main characters is a force to be reckoned with. Here is where real-life application comes into play. Life for Augustus and Hazel is fragile. She views herself, and others like her as grenades, just waiting to explode and take down others with the shrapnel. The fall out of Hazel's impending doom (seeing as her cancer is terminal) temporarily suspends her from living. 

"She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: we're as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we're not likely to do either."  (Augustus Waters) 

We must walk carefully through life, so that when we do explode, because we all will, either by cancer, old age, or a train wreck of unlikely happenstance, there will be fallout. 

"You don't get to choose who you hurt in this world old man..." 

Wise words from a seventeen year old, falling in love on the streets of foreign city. We don't get to choose what happens. Sometimes, we will hurt people merely by living. Other times, it will be our death that hurts people. But pain demands to be felt. It is unavoidable, a fact we must learn to live with, and live well. 

"...but you do have a say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers."

Pain is always going to be there, ever-present and part of life. We just need to live our lives so that the pain is worth it. Create a life worth feeling in, worth grieving through, loving, laughing, and crying, it is all part of the job. 

This life was given to us as a gift, and sometimes it will be shorter than expected, and other times it will hold more years than we can recall. It is all in the stars. There is always a forever, and infinity. 

"Some infinities are bigger than other infinities." (Hazel Grace Lancaster) 

 

Live well. 

Totus tuus, 

LeAnn