Quotes About Independence

In those first few hours officially single again the world seems like it expands, suddenly bigger and more vast now that you have to get through it alone.

This is what daughters did. They left, and came home later with lives of their own.

Welcome to adulthood, she said. It sucks as much as high school.

For as long as I could remember, other people had either overshadowed me or left me out in the open, alone. But Mac, as Layla had said all those weeks ago, was always somewhere nearby. He left me enough space to stand alone, but stood at the ready for the moment that I didn't want to. It was the perfect medium, I was learning. Like he was my saint, the one I'd been waiting for.

Once I turned eighteen, I could cut myself off from everyone and finally get what I wanted, which was to be on my own, once and for all. ~Ruby, pg 38

But when you're alone in the world, really alone, you have no choice but to be open to suggestions.

So much had happened that morning. Yet it was this image, this moment, that i kept going back to hours later, after we'd made it safely to the walkway and gone our separate ways to classes. How it felt to have the world moving beneath me, a hand gripping mine, knowing if i fell, at least i wouldn't do it alone.

Sometimes you dont even want to think aout what people are doing with their groceries.

It was great. Freedom even the imagined kind always is.

I wasn't ready for this, but then I probably never would be, and this year, like so much else, wouldn't wait. I had no choice but to get out of my car, with everyone watching and begin in earnest, alone. So I did

And so we stood there in the kitchen, my mother and I, facing off over everything that had built up since June, when I was willing to hand myself over free and clear. Now I needed her to return it all to me, with the faith that I could make my own way.

It's only advice. Ignore it if you want.

It's not forever', she'd said, but to my mother, it might as well have been. She had make her choice, and this was it, where she felt safe, in a world she could, for the most part, control.

All I'd ever thought I wanted was to be left alone. Until I was.

Don't trust the natives, Olivia has told me, but I was already a step ahead of her. I didn't trust anyone. Not for directions, not for rides, and not for advice either. Sure it sucked to be lost, but I'd long ago realized I preferred it to depending on anyone else to get me where I needed to go. That was the thing about being alone, in theory or in principle. Whatever happened – good bad or anywhere in between – it was always, if nothing else, all your own.

but accepting help doesn"t have to mean giving up control.

Because now, I didn't care what they thought. It wasn't new, this realization that I would never be like them. What was different now was that I was glad. Macy page 199

This felt right. Not just leaving, but how I was doing it. Without regret, without second guessing. And with Wes right there, holding the door open for me as I walked out into the light.

So it had been me. Maybe I'd known that all along, and that was why I had run. Because I didn't show weakness: I didn't depend on anyone. And if he'd been like the others, and just let me go, I would have been fine. It would have been easy to go on conveniently forgetting as I kept my heart clenched tight, away from where anyone could get to it.

She had made her choice, and this was it, where she felt safe, in a world she could, for the most part, control. Page 328

I never expected anything from anyone. Which was not the same thing as not wanting, ever, to be surprised.

If life is a journey, wouldn't you rather be the person behind the wheel than the one just being carried along?

The only person you can be sure to control, always, is yourself.

This isn't about him. It's about you. You shouldn't do anything you're not ready for.