{"quotes":[{"text":"Every few minutes or so I would remember the look from the man who had wanted fifty cents, and I'd look at that framed memory hanging in myself and it meant I was here, back in this sick city, but in other ways I was not here at all and anyone who looked closely could see that I had nothing to give, that I was a junk drawer, a collection of things that may or may not have had a use.","author":"Catherine Lacey","tags":["catherine-lacey","disconnected","mental-illness","metaphor","nobody-is-ever-missing","nothing-to-give","removed"],"id":8737,"author_id":"Catherine+Lacey"},{"text":"I couldn't decide how to feel about what he was saying, whether it was all nonsense or just more evidence that I would never understand this world.","author":"Catherine Lacey","tags":["catherine-lacey","nonsense","the-answers","uncomprehending","world"],"id":22285,"author_id":"Catherine+Lacey"},{"text":"Lately, I couldn't remember those years, as if childhood was a movie I'd only seen the previews to.","author":"Catherine Lacey","tags":["catherine-lacey","childhood","memory","nobody-is-ever-missing","repressed-memories","simile"],"id":27214,"author_id":"Catherine+Lacey"},{"text":"I wondered for a moment if he was trying to get me to join a cult, but I realized it was just his youth talking, not a dogma.","author":"Catherine Lacey","tags":["catherine-lacey","humor","nobody-is-ever-missing","youth"],"id":53005,"author_id":"Catherine+Lacey"},{"text":"But what had really happened? It was still unclear. Was it possible nothing of any significance had ever happened between us and our ending was just the sad process of realizing this?","author":"Catherine Lacey","tags":["breakup","catherine-lacey","relationship","the-answers"],"id":66015,"author_id":"Catherine+Lacey"},{"text":"My body felt like tangled rubber bands and dried-out pens and sticky paper clips, like the contents of a drawer where you put the things you don't have anywhere else to put, and I knew that the mind and body are connected, and that my bodily sensations were just messages from my mind, but I just wished there was a box or a drawer or a hole in the ground where I could put all this, all this mind and body stuff that I didn't know what else to do with.","author":"Catherine Lacey","tags":["body","catherine-lacey","escape","mind","nobody-is-ever-missing","simile"],"id":128268,"author_id":"Catherine+Lacey"},{"text":"You will never be missing to yourself and all you can do is delay, delay, delay and the delaying must be good enough for you and you must find a way to be fine with the delay because it is your whole life and the minute you really go missing is the minute you can no longer miss.","author":"Catherine Lacey","tags":["catherine-lacey","life","metaphor","missing","nobody-is-ever-missing"],"id":155008,"author_id":"Catherine+Lacey"},{"text":"He excused himself for a nap, and this day blended into his dreams like like years blended into a life, unseen but still felt, the line between memory and present always bleeding.","author":"Catherine Lacey","tags":["catherine-lacey","dreams","life","reality","simile","the-answers","years"],"id":172007,"author_id":"Catherine+Lacey"},{"text":"I hiked up a path and into the woods, thinking about what I should be thinking about and almost having a real feeling—a feeling like, this is really sad, this is a sad place to be, a sad part of my life, maybe just a sad life. The woods were not particularly beautiful. I was not impressed by the trees.","author":"Catherine Lacey","tags":["catherine-lacey","description","feelings","nature","nobody-is-ever-missing","reflection","sad","unimpressed"],"id":191992,"author_id":"Catherine+Lacey"},{"text":"Maybe misery begins everywhere.","author":"Catherine Lacey","tags":["catherine-lacey","misery","nobody-is-ever-missing"],"id":200396,"author_id":"Catherine+Lacey"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":35,"pages":4,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}