And when he was drinking, he was almost unbearable: erratic, violent, emotionally absent, impossible.
She'll come to you with a lifetime of social reinforcement encouraging her to "do it all" (while neglecting to inform her that the expectations for Office Women are physically, emotionally, and temporally impossible).
"There wasn't much you could do about the emotional issues, but you'd try to keep the students from emotionally throwing themselves into impossible situations".
Human parents, of course, lack the detachment of the turtle, these days more than ever it seems, while adult children find it difficult, sometimes impossible, to emotionally separate from their parents.
Still, the book glints with Link's raw, willful energy, and there are emotionally honest moments: "It's impossible to appreciate the solitude when all I feel is the loneliness," she writes.
In Ms. Simpson's dazzling debut novel "Anywhere but Here," it was a girl's emotionally fraught relationship with her impossible mother that carved the fundamental contours of her life.
Over time, wives retreat emotionally because it's virtually impossible to love someone who perpetually hurts you.
But it's impossible not to be emotionally affected.
