I first read these words in 2017. They come from a beautiful little book called The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion, which accounts Didion’s notes on grief after the death of her husband. I picked this book up for my course readings. It was one of several texts we could choose to analyse — an obvious selection for me, who used it as an excuse to read about grief to deal with my own.
At the time I was navigating my first big relationship break up, first year of university — and if I had to pin one book as the most insightful during that time of sorrow and torment, I would pin Magical Thinking. The ‘life changes in the instant’ line has never left my memory, coming back to me any time some major change happened in my life.