When we are ready to let go of our old controls, we admit that we were powerless over the incest or abuse...We have often thought, 'If only I could have stopped it,' but we could not have stopped it. We let go of the 'if only' now and sit still with our stark powerlessness...In our surrender to powerlessness, we touch ourselves with the gift of truth.
I know girls aren't supposed to tell, but I've got to tell--just in case you should fail to love me because you never knew how much I loved you. I want not to have to say later--I wish I'd told him.
Beyond her declaration of love she could not see. But as she rehearsed the intensity of her passion she thought that he , when the time came, . The desire to, at the right time, him became, as the years moved forward toward that time, increasingly painful, like a poisoned wound that must heal itself by breaking open. She thought in anguish of the times, the recent times, when she could have told him, and had been afraid to, and had clumsily withdrawn, when she could have attracted him and drawn his attention to her. When she had watched over him when he was sleeping in the sedan-chair and could have wakened him with a kiss. If only she had , then she could more easily have borne his not preferring her. He was ready to fall in love -- and if he had -- he must have loved her -- if he had known how much she loved him. The pain of this loss burnt her in every waking moment, that awful 'if only'. She had lost him, and lost him through her own fault. There were no more pleasures now in life.