Sarah Dessen - Just Listen (2006)

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Music is the great uniter. An incredible force. Something that people who differ on everything and anything else can have in common.

Sarah Dessen
So while it seemed like you were seeing everything, you really weren't. Just bits and pieces that looked like a whole.

Sarah Dessen
I thought again how you could never really know what you were seeing with just a glance, in motion, passing by. Good or bad, right or wrong. There was always so much more.

Sarah Dessen
One open, one closed. It was no wonder that the first image that came to mind when I thought of either of my sisters was a door. With Kirsten, it was the front one to our house, through which she was always coming in or out, usually in mid-sentence, a gaggle of friends trailing behind her. Whitney's was the one to her bedroom, which she preferred to keep shut between her and the rest of us, always.

Sarah Dessen
There has to be a middle. Without it, nothing can ever truly be whole. Because it is not just the space between, but also what holds everything together.

Sarah Dessen
It's a big deal when you finally get the chance to do the one thing you want to do -need to do- more than anything. It can kind of scare the crap out of you.

Sarah Dessen
So I left him there alone to watch history repeat the same events retold again and again on his own.

Sarah Dessen
And while it is hard enough to take away something that makes a person happy it's even more difficult when it seems like it's the only thing.

Sarah Dessen
All I'd ever wanted was to forget. but even when I thought I had, pieces had kept emerging, like bits of wood floating up to the surface that only hint at the shipwreck below.

Sarah Dessen
I'd been convinced I was on the outside, but really, I'd always been within arm's reach. All I had to do was ask, and I, too, would be easily brought back, surrounded and immersed, finding myself safe, somewhere in between.

Sarah Dessen
See for me, it's immediate. Silence is so freaking loud.' This seemed either deep or deeply oxymoronic. I wasn't sure which.

Sarah Dessen
This is the problem with dealing with someone who is actually a good listener. They don't jump in on your sentences, saving you from actually finishing them, or talk over you, allowing what you do manage to get out to be lost or altered in transit. Instead, they wait, so you have to keep going.

Sarah Dessen
No matter how much time has passed, these things still affect us and the world we live in. If you don't pay attention to the past, you'll never understand the future. It's all linked together.

Sarah Dessen
It was like when you're a little kid and you run into your teacher or librarian at the grocery store or Wal-mart and it's just so startling, because it never occurred to you they existed outside of school.

Sarah Dessen
The worst part was that I had things I wanted to tell my mother, too many to count, but none of them would go down so easy. She'd been through too much, between my siters-I could not add to the weight. So instead, I did my best to balance it out, bit by bit, word by word, story by story, even if none of them were true.

Sarah Dessen
Looking at her, I thought again how beautiful she was - even in jeans and a T-shirt, no makeup, she was breathtaking. So much so that it was hard to believe she could ever have looked at herself and seen anything else.

Sarah Dessen
Because the truth sometimes hurts," I said. Yeah," he said. "So do lies, though.

Sarah Dessen
I mean, at first, it was kind of disappointing. But people recover from disappointment. Otherwise we'd all be hanging from nooses. Right?

Sarah Dessen
I remembered Owen telling me how music had saved him in Phoenix, that it drowned everything out, and it was the same for me now. As long as I had something to listen to, I could blur the things I didn't want to think about, if not block them out completely.

Sarah Dessen
In Anger Management,' he said,'we had to do all this role-playing stuff. You know, to get used to handling things in a less volatile way.' 'You role-played,' I said, trying to picture this. 'I had to. It was court-ordered.

Sarah Dessen
You can't always get the perfect moment. Sometimes, you just have to do the best you can under the circumstances.

Sarah Dessen
There was no short answer to this; like so much else, it was a long story. But what really makes any story real is knowing someone will hear it. And understand.

Sarah Dessen
Pieces and parts were always easier to process. The full picture, the entire story, was another thing entirely. But you just never knew. Sometimes, people could surprise you.

Sarah Dessen
There was something so heavy about the burden of history, of the past. I wasn't sure I had it in me to keep looking back.

Sarah Dessen
Music is a total constant. That's why we have such a strong visceral connection to it, you know? Because a song can take you back instantly to a moment, or a place, or even a person. No matter what else has changed in your or the world, that one song says the same, just like that moment.

Sarah Dessen
If someone is really close with you, your getting upset or them getting upset is okay, and they don't change because of it. It's just part of the relationship. It happens. You deal with it.

Sarah Dessen
Really? Screaming? He shrugged. It wasn't that bad. But there were definitely some freak-outs on both sides. Though, to be honest, the silence was worse. Worse than screaming? I said. Much, he said, nodding. I mean, at least with an argument, you know what's happening. Or have some idea. Silence is… it could be anything. It's just – So freaking loud, I finished for him. He pointed at me. Exactly.

Sarah Dessen
It's a choice, Annabel. And if you make the wrong one, you have only yourself to blame when there are consequences.

Sarah Dessen
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

Sarah Dessen
The kind who live for music and are constantly seeking it out, anywhere they can. Who can't imagine a life without it. They're enlightened.

Sarah Dessen