Creativity Quote by Christine McVie

There is a hard-won adult clarity in “You can only mend the vase so many times before you have to chuck it away,” the kind that arrives after you have tried being patient, romantic, reasonable, and the designated fixer-all in the same relationship. McVie’s image does two things at once: it domesticates heartbreak (a vase, not a battlefield) and makes it final. A vase is chosen, displayed, handled with care. It’s also fragile, and once it’s cracked, “mending” is never neutral; it leaves seams, glue, the faint record of damage you can’t unsee.

The intent isn’t cruelty, it’s triage. “Only so many times” is the quiet metric of emotional labor, the tally of apologies, second chances, repairs that aren’t repairs so much as temporary patches. The verb “chuck” matters: blunt, unsentimental, almost physical. Not “let go,” not “move on.” Chuck. The line refuses the prestige language of healing and replaces it with a practical decision: sometimes you stop because continuing is its own kind of self-harm.

In the Fleetwood Mac ecosystem - a band practically built on romantic fracture and the art it generated - the metaphor lands with extra bite. Their mythology celebrates turning damage into songs, turning mess into melody. McVie’s subtext pushes back: yes, art can come from chaos, but a life can’t run indefinitely on repairs. Some things aren’t meant to be endlessly refurbished; they’re meant to be replaced, or left behind, so the room can breathe again.