The Hard Thing About Hard Things Novels & Stories

“Go home. Be with your daughter. Let Lucian have his space. Tomorrow you focus on being a good mother. A good business owner. A good person. You don’t focus on fixing this. Not yet. Not until he’s ready.” “This is the hardest thing you’ve ever told me to do.” “Good. Hard things are usually the right things. Easy things are usually avoidance disguised as action.” She almost changed her heart. Almost became the warm, supportive mother-in-law I expected. Instead she gave me something harder. More valuable. More real. Truth. Hard truth. Uncomfortable truth. Necessary truth. I can’t fix this immediately. Can’t rush Lucian’s healing. Can’t make his pain go away because it inconveniences me.

She thought about what Mira had said: the damage makes you into something useful. She thought: yes. And the ongoing management of the hard things also makes you into something. Specifically, it makes you into someone who can look at the hard thing without looking away from it, and that is its own kind of strength that the people around you need from you even if they do not have words for needing it. She went back to the office and the archive work and the afternoon session and the evening with her family, and she held the hard things at their correct size—not minimized, not inflated—and the day continued with its full weight and its full warmth and she inhabited both without resolving the te

Kieran’s mind raced, understanding the underlined statement Roy was trying to get across, but the quotes he was saying just didn’t make sense to him. Roy’s gaze drifted, and then he stood up, slinging his bag over his shoulder. Walked over to the teacher and told him something; the teacher acknowledged it by nodding his head, and Roy came back. “Most people don’t make it past the first two. But the third… the third is the hardest, because it's not about self-survival. It’s about choosing to fight for something when it’s easier to let go.” “I really wonder, Kieran, which of the three you are.”

It was about survival, but as I moved through the crowd, one truth pressed against my ribs so hard it almost hurt: I could endure, I could swallow it, I could work twice as hard, but how long before enduring turned into breaking? Shit.

I often ask myself, could life be any harder than this? The day I left home four years ago felt like I was leaving pieces of my broken heart as a trail for me to follow, if I did decide to come back. With each piece, I would pick it up and put it to where it fitted perfectly and then do the same with the others, carefully and surely. However, if I'd reach the last piece to make my heart whole, it would all come crumbling down, having me to start all over again.

‘I’ have always been the problem. They said hard work would never let you down, but it let me down more than I could ever count. Every single day, no matter how hard I try, I keep getting worse as if there was this invisible force stopping me from getting better. I keep turning into this ugly version of myself.

he spoke, letting his thoughts out. "This version isn't shitty, it's just harder to deal with, that's all" I grinned teasingly as I glanced over at him. Ngl I kinda cringed writing this but it's for their development ok T_t

"So what? Is it wrong for employees to question their boss? "There was never a fixed work schedule to begin with. That is chaotic management. You should be thanking us. We pointed out the problems for you. Otherwise, Halecrest Solutions would’ve collapsed sooner or later." As soon as he finished speaking, others immediately chimed in. "Yeah, they weren’t wrong. Either delay the start time properly, or don’t pretend with fake flexibility that still has to be made up later. What kind of philanthropic act is that? At the end of the day, you’re still a capitalist."

"We figure it out. Like we always do." "I'm tired of figuring it out. I want something to be easy. Just once." He sat beside me. "Nothing's easy. Not for anyone." "Then how do people do it?" "Barely. Just like us." I wanted better answers. But there weren't any. This was it. The reality. Work and motherhood. Constant collision. No balance. Just survival.

"Every version of her I have a memory of is the difficult version. The one from treatment, the one I've been talking to on the phone — I don't have a real memory of her being that person. I just have the phone calls." "And now she'll be here." "And now she'll be here and she'll be a person in a room and I'll have to — I don't know what I'll have to do. That's the part that's difficult." I looked at him. "You don't have to do anything in particular," I said. "You just have to be there and see what it is." "What if it's hard?" "It will probably be hard." "That's not reassuring." "It's not meant to be reassuring," I said. "It's meant to be true. Hard things and good things coexist. The hard doe