“If only she didn’t feel so pushed aside. So extraneous, so unnecessary.
She had always assumed that when she was old, she would have total confidence, finally. But look at her: still uncertain. In many ways she was more uncertain now than she had been as a girl. And often when she heard herself speaking she was appalled at how chirpy she sounded—empty-headed and superficial, as if she’d somehow fallen into the Mom role in some shallow TV sitcom.
What on earth had happened to her?”
—Anne Tyler, A Spool of Blue Thread