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We didn’t meet for coffee to talk about movies or to be together. We were having coffee so I could be told, without actually being told, that this is how it would be. We would never mention the kiss. We will pretend it never happened. Instead, we will talk about movies and condiments and all sorts of other things that don’t matter at all. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis I’m missing Doug a little. Or not really Doug. I mean, I’m just missing having someone to talk to about my day. Someone to lie next to. Or someone to be quiet around. Or someone to fantasize about getting away from. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis Don’t you ever think that maybe you’re a person who needs to enhance every experience? You can’t start an exercise program, you have to run a marathon. You can’t just smoke, you have to smoke and drink. You can’t marry a regular guy, you have to marry a drug addict. What’s so terrible about average? I mean, imagine what that guy over there spends each month on jewelry cleaner alone. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis If she knows what she wants, she has a better chance of getting it. A better shot at happiness. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis His forgiveness feels like a small miracle. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis I can’t speak. I am physically unable. I can’t fight. I can’t defend or explain myself. I thought these were my friends. I thought I didn’t have to work at keeping these people as friends. I thought they’d always be my friends. But nothing is ever straightforward. And there’s no such thing as forever. No matter how well you kid yourself. The truth is, you don’t know anyone. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis I have a head full of ideas about improving one’s life that, unfortunately, I lack the fearlessness to implement. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis Look at his eyes. Those eyes are in pain. His eyes make me feel alone. And I always will be. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis Things get easy between us. And that’s when he starts being honest. And of course that can’t be good. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis I find myself looking forward to our first fight. Even maybe prompting it. Maybe I’ll get to punctuate my disgust in some very dramatic way … a public slap. Mainly, I want to know if we will survive an argument. Or maybe confirm that we won’t. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis I worry a lot … I worry that he’s going to leave me. And I worry that his girlfriend will come back to him. I worry that he’ll get killed in a car accident. I worry that he’ll get bored with me. I just worry. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis The thing is, he’s never seen her. He doesn’t know her. What kind of guy has a kid and never sees her? What kind of person does that? ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis “You’re breaking this off,” he says. “And we’re
not going to talk about it? And you think that’s a good idea?
I’m not going to accept that. If you want to have an adult conversation
about this and then break up, fine. But until we’ve had a discussion,
we’ve not broken up,” he says. It must be very scary … to think that every fight will lead to a breakdown in an important relationship. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis I’ve always avoided fights. I make jokes instead. I tell people what they want to hear in order to avoid a confrontation. I pretend to want things I don’t want, and I pretend not to want things I do want. No one gets hurt. Except me. The lines are so crossed and blurred at this point that I don’t know what I want. I just know I want it to be easy. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis It was the saddest thing, and it absolutely broke my heart. But maybe it shouldn’t have. Maybe the letter made her feel like a writer. Maybe in that way it was a very valuable letter. A letter that made her feel connected to the world she wanted to live in. I should have related to it; instead it just seemed sad. Perspective, I guess, is everything. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis The rewards are great when you take chances. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis I’m holding him up to a standard that no one can actually live up to. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis It’s easier this way, because when he fails all the tests, I won’t be disappointed, because they were set up in a way to ensure that he would fail. And, in turn, I would not be disappointed by the outcome. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis There are mistakes that we make when we’re young that can’t be fixed when we’re older. And so we live with them. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis I’ve never picked anyone up. I don’t know how to pick up guys. I usually just camouflage myself as this wonderful person and let them come to me. It’s easier that way. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis I’ve been thinking about all of this. And I was thinking that I never said that I was sorry. I’m sorry about how things happened. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis There’s never really a good time for bad news. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis But what I see is that everyone keeps changing, evolving, except for me. I lack courage. Not the kind of courage it takes to rescue a person from a burning building. Not adrenaline courage. But everyday courage, the kind that, once it’s added up, day after day, equals a happy life. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis I love you because when I walk away from a conversation with you, I have no confusion about how you feel. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis You’re never too good for your home. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis I read all those books I always wanted to read, or reread … And I feel full. Until I finish a book. Then I feel a certain desperation to start a new one. To have company. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis I don’t want to die in my living room in front of a stranger. I don’t want some healthy young woman hovering over my old body, showing me who I used to be. I know exactly what I don’t’ want but very little about what I do want. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis I sob off and on. But in general I’m just there. Taking up space. I don’t utter a single word … I was just filling the silence, because silence makes me anxious. Even now, I fill the gaps of silence by crying. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis Everyone’s always concentrating on first love. No one seems to care much about second love. Or third. Or fourth love. First love, that’s the one that’s always celebrated and documented like it never happened before to anyone, anywhere. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis It’s a refining process, though, falling in love. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis No matter what number it is, the pursuit of love is like agreeing to climb on a giant slingshot and be thrust forward, at full speed, with only a blurry target in sight and millions of miles of flight. And most times it’s all a mirage. The blurry target? It’s a brick wall. Or a wall that really loves you, but also keeps urging you to change. So why thrust? Because there’s nothing quite like the hope of a new and improved self, and the fantasy it allows you. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis You don’t need to know any of this. But the things I don’t reveal are the things I hold closest and fear losing the most. I work overtime keeping them veiled and camouflaged. You don’t need to know that I walk around all day fearing the things that make me happy, and that I have been doing that for my entire life … You don’t need to know that growing up has come late to me. I’m the last one at the party. But at least I’ve shown up. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis I don’t stick around long enough to listen to what needs to be said. What I need is something to hold against you. Because if I don’t have that, I will be crushed when you go away. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis You don’t need to know that I’m telling myself to stay
when I feel like leaving. Because leaving is easy, and staying take
work. But in the midst of the work, I might lose some of my fear. You
don’t need to know that up until I met him, my life’s goal
was self-preservation. And that when I met him, self-preservation felt
genuinely lonely. When you run into love and it seems like some psychedelic mystery, look at it again, and again, and keep looking at it until you realize the only mystery is how you’ve gotten by so long without it. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis And when I think about that – I’m filled with regret for not telling him everything he didn’t need to know but should have known. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis You can’t start over. There’s no such thing as starting over. There’s only history. And right now you’re making tomorrow’s history, so go out and do something that will be fun to remember. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis I don’t have a clue where we’re going. But I keep walking anyway. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis Human beings have a scary knack for recognizing the competition. ~ Girls’ Poker Night by Jill Davis |
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