Catherine Sanderson

“Monochrome contentment or technicolor roller-coaster? No contest, is it?”

“Le dragueur (the chat up artist)”

“It stung this new rejection, but it was also a relief to put an end to the ambiguity and incertitude. I had been deceiving myself the day I decided I could master the art of detachment, or maybe the mistake was to allow things to go on in that vein for as long as they had.”

“Isn't this more about how two people can read a situation in two completely different ways? I've been resisting the urge to build castles in the air, like I always do, and you just saw whatever it was that you wanted to see.”

“I realised I was tiring of our games, fed up with trying to second guess his motives, weary of trying to hold myself aloof so that I wouldn't lose face.”

“We were supposed to be having a serious conversation about where we were headed - or indeed why we were headed nowhere - but it was proving impossible. Banter was the only register we seemed capable of and without it we'd lost all means of communication.”

“By writing this, knowing  that there was a chance he'd read it, i was up to my old tricks. Was I not sending an open letter hoping for some kind of response, in return?”

“Oh yes, We've all danced to this particular tune at one time in our lives. In my experience, the majority of women are hopeless romantics, believing that, in time, he'll realise how wonderful we are, and fall in love with us....”

“You need to decide what works for you. But ultimately, hold out for adoration and respect”

“I choose my outfit, my undergarments with care, because I know from experience that a drink, with him, will lead to much, much more. In the bar, I bask in his attention, happy in this moment, knowing full well it will be fleeting. I lie in bed, his sleeping body curled around mine, his arm around my waist, marvelling that someone can be so close, skin against mine, but simultaneously seem so remote, so inaccessible.When we part the next day and I hear the words I fully expect to hear - 'well, I guess I'll see you when I get back' - i feel a twinge of something I was determined not to feel. A brief pang of remorse that I may have been selling little pieces of myself to the lowest bidder.”

“I know he isn't a serious candidate for anything long-term. Or even medium-term. But maybe that's precisely why he's so attractive to me, right now. Unsuitable is good. Temporary is good...”

“I decided however fleeting, however short lived these sensations might be, I was determined to savor them while they lasted, without pushing for moreI liked him, and sensed I could grow to like him more. But I knew it was too soon to beckon anyone inside the invisible circle I had drawn around myself.”

“I do still love you. I don't love you enough to be able to give you the things we dreamed about and planned.”

“Everywhere was filled with painful, jarring reminders of what I'd lost: an elderly couple sitting on a bench, gnarly, arthritic fingers interlaced; a handsome young man in a baseball cap whispering something in his pregnant wife's ear, his arm draped protectively around her shoulders.”

“The reason for my discomfort was simple. Our story - however romantic I could make it sound in my head - sometimes sounded a little tawdry in the re-telling. There was no escaping the fact that I'd been living with the father of my child when we met; that I'd cheated on him, then left; that what James and I now shared was born out of the ruins of another relationship.”

“I needed reassurance from the doubts that were beginning to surface in my mind since I'd first given voice to them in conversation with Amy.”

“I want to build you a house with my bare hands and carry you over the threshold. I want too cook for you every evening and bring you tea in bed in the mornings. I want to read with you in front of an open fire, sipping a glass of wine. I want to drive you to the beach and lie next to you in the sun. I may not be a man of means, bit I want to take care of you as best I can.”

“Love' was a word I had cheapened with overuse over the years, bleeding it dry of meaning by saying it purely from force of habit, or to convince myself of something of which I was far from sure. I wanted to wait until the words started to feel meaningful again before I used them.”

“Our break-up had been a resounding anti-climax. I wanted to be wept over, bitterly. I wanted to be fought for. Mourned, or regretted just a little.I wanted to feel like I was someone who'd been worth having in the first place.”

“I think I'd convinced myself that all long-term relationships end up that way; I really thought I had no right to expect more.”

“Much of that afternoon remains an intense blur: Maybe extremes of pleasure and pain are just too much for the memory to handle, which is why we forget. ”

“I wondered then if there could ever be trust in a relationship based from the outset upon deceiving other people.”

“Life has a habit of making the easy desperately difficult, and the hardest choices so easy as to be no choice at all.”

“I tumbled into the taxi alone, closing the door closed with a dull thud before I could possibly change my mind. Not like this, I remember thinking. Whatever this thing is between us, it could only be tainted and cheapened by a semi-drunken encounter on the night of our first meeting. As the car pulled away I stared back at him. The thought that I might never see him again, that I might never know what it would feel like to be kissed by him, seemed unbearably cruel.At a crossroads, I had been faced with a choice: two possible versions of my future mapped out ahead of me. But I didn't feel like I had made any sort of decision. All I had done was run away.”

“Any new French female acquaintance would most likely have held herself aloof, eyeing you suspiciously until she had assessed your character and whether or not you posed a threat.”

“I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt so wrapped up in someone that I saw only him, caring not a jot what onlookers might think. I ached with nostalgia for a younger, more responsive me, who seemed to feel things more intensely.”

“Music from my iPod was setting my life to a dramatic soundtrack that only I could hear.”

“One unforeseen advantage of having a  child was that it gave me the excuse to talk to myself to my heart's content and pretend it was for my daughters benefit.”

“When tadpole was born, I spent a sleepless night on the maternity ward gazing intently into her inky, newborn eyes, grappling to come to terms with the indisputable fact that this was an actual person looking back at me, not just a version of Mr Frog, or me, or both, in miniature. From the outset she seemed to know what she wanted, and I realised I could have no inkling of the paths she would choose to follow. But if I watch her life unfold carefully enough, perhaps I will see clear signposts pointing to who or what she will become.Because when I look backwards, ransacking my own past for clues with the clarity that only hindsight can bring, several defining moments do stand out. Moments charged with significance; snapshots of myself which, if I were to join the dots together, lead me unswervingly to where I stand today.”