He unrequitedly loved Anna; Anna unrequitedly loved Marco; Marco probably unrequitedly loved some rando none of them had ever met. The world was pitiless. Nobody had any power over anyone else.
Ted was wildly uncomfortable. He wasn't quite sure who Rachel was on a date with, but it didn't seem to be him. He'd contributed nothing to the outing; as far as he could tell, she could have brought an inflatable doll with her to the movie and had an equally good time.
It was the moments; the precious moments. The moments when no one was complaining, blaming, thinking about past hurts or the fear of future ones. It was those moments of simply being present to another person. Those moments of being grateful. Gratitude for another being; gratitude for life. Those moments made their relationship.
For the first time, Ted imagined fucking Anna the way he (almost) fucked Rachel: cruelly, without concern for her comfort, fully acknowledging that as much as he loved her, he hated her, too.
Relationships are a gift from God. One cannot arrange what is not written in Heaven. Both people must feel the spark of God which ignites the love and says, “Come this way, I have a good story for you.
It's a complicated relationship, being a good grandparent, because it hinges on a series of other relationships... Because being a grandparent is determined by the relationship your child has with you, partly determined by the one a son or daughter has with his or her spouse, partly determined by the relationship you have with the person your child has chosen to have a child with.