stuck in parentheses

What is hardest to accept about the passage of time is that the people who once mattered the most to us are wrapped up in parenthesis. - John Irving, The Cider House Rules, 453.

What an excellent, true and perfect quote. I told LQ that I never compare myself to the characters I read in books, but I have to take it back, 'cos I do, and I'm doing it now.

Looking back at my life, I almost wonder if I'm in the business of collecting brackets. I hope not. Someday I hope all the brackets will fall away.