1. There are approximately 12 times more sweethearts out there than shitty people, and it’s a really great thing. Keep going until you find them.
2. Please take me seriously. I take you seriously – probably way too seriously. I am not a joke even though I know a lot of great ones.
3. Imagine my surprise when you were more shallow than my overactive imagination could’ve imagined.
4. The great people who have been doing great things are still out there, doing them. How about you? You have not done enough until you are dead. Keep moving.
5. Can we all please be more excited about Finding Dory? This movie is gonna be great. Right?! Let’s go see it when it comes out in…4 months.
6. Any positivity you can find. It is all some sort of sunshine.
7. My computer is almost 8 years old. That’s ancient! Should I send it to a museum? I mean, I would, but then how would I check Tumblr??
falling out. the stars are falling out of orbit. we’ve just found a new planet, a thing that has been there longer than any of us. it is not new. this is not new. it is new to me, it is silence and sadness and heart pain. it is shaking limbs; body crying because all the tears have gone, because i am too sad to cry. it doesn’t matter. think of the young boy who died. think of the planets. i loved you. did i? i hated you. you are far away and i don’t know you anymore. you are not a planet; you are out of my galaxy.
there is a quote that gives you hope. a sentence. there is happiness still, sunshine. a memory, a picture that doesn’t exist of a beach you sat on for hours one summer. here i am, sitting on my bed, strumming terrible chords, happy. we’ll all keep looking for new places that have always existed, and people. there is hope and kindness, and once someone invented a telescope, and once we looked up together at a beautiful old building, and it is all magic and sadness and loss.
he tells me i am strong. i believe him. it is true. we are. we are weak and strong and we will keep finding new wonderful and terrible things. this is the bigger picture you can’t see. this is why we are kind. this is why i loved you. did i? this is why people hate. we are scared but together. the sun is coming up and it is so far away. what does it matter? i will tell you tomorrow, if you are still here.
1. You must earn respect again and again. It is not a birthright. It doesn’t come from a title, even if you think it comes from a title, even if it seems to. You have to prove yourself, always, forever, until you die. And then maybe the respect or the disrespect people held for you will live on.
2. Everyone’s already finished the new season of Orange is the New Black. So, now that you’ve got some free time, you should binge watch Grace and Frankie!
3. I love so many people so much and it’s so wonderful.
4. “I can dig it.”
5. Hey guys, maybe we should be more concerned about the planet than like, kim kardashian, whoever that is? Just a thought.
6. Why are you not internet stalking me enough?!
7. Breaking News: White boys white girl dance, too! I’ve seen it! With my very own eyes! Now excuse me, I have to go flail my arms around to this music.
8. Go outside!
9. He has a selfie stick but I still like him. Which is impressive. Although, selfie sticks are becoming more acceptable generally. I think it all started in Asia and then maybe someone flew one over to the States and the rest is, um, selfie history! I could really talk about this forever. Shall I go on?! I won’t. #selfiesticks
10. I am not afraid of many things, but, expressway construction is terrifying. Please stop making me drive in pretend lanes you basically drew with sidewalk chalk and built solid concrete walls around! Thanks!
Can you hear yourself talking? Sometimes all I hear is the loud noise that comes from your lips. The whining empty words that don’t mean anything, the drift-less thoughts, the sentences just filling up time and space.
I wish I could sing like him. I wish I would take the time to learn how to make music, how to make more beautiful things. I can’t hear myself; I only listen closely to other people. I can hear when you’re not hearing me.
His hair is shorter now and his face is long. I remember the sounds in the room, the stillness of standing alone. My stomach grumbles and she asks me how to make soup. I will dream of it all tonight, music and carving potatoes and sharpening knives in the tiny, dirty kitchen.
When I wake up she is still here. A lot of people have disappeared, somehow. I am grinning and my jaw hurts. He tells me stories about the bay and people who ride bicycles. I imagine all of the roads I will have to drive on between here and there. Where will all of my books go, all of my stories?
I have so much to say, but he is not the one to say it to; I know, I’ve read the list of approved questions and answers. I have met him before over the years, I can see him and hear him well. My guitar is leaning against the wall; it’s ready to go, it’s waiting, too. Beautiful and terrible things and people just want more of everything even if you don’t have any to share.
The conversation goes on without me. He is singing in the background of my head and I’m not paying attention. Are you always this quiet? They ask, they are the same people, I have met them all before, I will meet them all again, I will love them until they don’t say enough.
She is eating a cheese sandwich somewhere on the other side of the world. She finally found a girl who will laugh at her jokes. She speaks softly and wants more for you than what you have. I want to be strong like her someday, I want my strumming hand to be strong, I want him to smile in photographs.
He is a straight boy with dyed black hair and thin lips. He looks like a mass murderer, really, but he’s wonderful. She swears to me she won’t talk to him today, but she does, she does, she does. I send her pictures of flowers and we talk about things that are important and I don’t feel guilty afterward like I’ve done something bad.
It seems like everyone good will end up there with me. You know how to tell the difference by now, don’t you? What good is growing older if we can’t shake their hand and see the outcome? But that is why you and I are not the same, that is why I love the people that I do, that is why you’re staying there and we’re leaving here.
1. Who do you think you are?! No, really, who are you? Putting on different fake faces for different people isn’t a good way to live life.
2. Here’s the thing you forgot, the thing you’ve been searching for: it isn’t that you want to do it, it’s that you must do it.
3. If you leave the music on your iPod long enough, you’ll start to like at all again! (Might take several years.)
4. I’m pretty excited (geeked!) for the new Stars Wars movie. I didn’t even think I liked Star Wars that much! Where’s the VHS box set?! Dig it out of the basement, please. Yes, I did forget what VHS were called! I googled it.
5. I haven’t practiced French in 6 months. Oops! But really, when are they going to come up with an “upgrade” for my brain?! My computer has to update every once in awhile, why can’t some program add “French V.1.0” to my head while I sleep?! #questions
6. Being cruel in an attempt to be funny, isn’t. It just makes you an asshole.
7. “You found out what kind of person to be from your parents.” “But I’m nothing like my parents.” “You found out what kind of person to be from your parents.”
8. It’s all okay.
9. Where are we going? Why is it so confusing? Why is it so hard? Why is it so easy for some people? What’s wrong with them?!
And then he goes quiet again, the alcohol only letting that much out.
“Why?”
There is no response.
He is drunk and he is too young. But the years keep coming and he ages unwillingly. There are new things he is supposed to do and the birthday parties are less colorful. His blue bicycle is rusted and people don’t notice him as he walks down the street. He is himself. He is supposed to be a man.
What do we have in common?
What do we have in common, I wonder, as he tells me little slurs of himself.
“I’ve been thinking a lot.”
“About what?”
He never tells me, but slumps down in his chair, giving in to gravity.
He is calm and sad. He likes pictures of the sky. He thinks about constellations. I think about constellations. Remember how small we are? Who decided he has to grow up like this? Into this?
There are no other signs of hope from him. He does not seem hopeful. How could he be? How am I? I want to tell him, but there isn’t a short sentence for clarity.
What do we have in common? It must be something. We are so much the same. It is simple and laughable and sad. It is drunk and alcohol and stars. It is remembering how to walk down the street alone. It is music and turning it up too loud and turning it down again. It is midnight again and again and again, and mornings, and afternoons, and cooking ourselves our own dinners. It is loneliness and searching the sky. It is an easy something, something to hold onto, something to become.
He drinks and falls asleep. He will rinse out the bottles in the morning and send them to be recycled. He will keep growing up into this. He will become it. I hope he will keep looking at the sky. Somehow it can be easy to miss.
1. It’s so hard when someone you care about is hurting. There’s only so much you can say (over and over again), only so many smiley emojis to send. You really can’t fully understand what they’re going through. You can be there for them, but how useful is that?
2. Stop filling time. You’re not supposed to be that person. Remember all that stuff you want to do? Why aren’t you doing it?
3. More and more I appreciate people who say offensive shit because people are becoming so SENSITIVE about EVERYTHING.
4. Do what it is you do.
5. People told me about Bob’s Burgers. They said I should watch it. Did I listen? Sort of. Did I listen soon enough? NO! It’s so good.
6. It doesn’t have to be your fault. Maybe it’s not anyone’s fault. Really.
7. “You’re so chill.” I am?! When did that happen? Huh.
8. When did everyone I talk to start using slang all the time? It’s like I no longer speak English! It’s like I’m old!
9. I should probably stop assuming every super awkward person I meet has Asperger’s. Oooops. I’m like a walking, very specific, WebMD!
10. I feel like not having a cell phone is going to add years onto my life, just in the amount of stress reduced alone from not having to wait between each text message.
“She doesn’t like to spend time with me. Or anyone else. I annoy her. She wants to be alone. She wants to be with me, but she wants to be alone. She likes to be by herself. Other people make her anxious. She feels like she’s pretending all the time, she feels like she’s turning into someone she’s not. But she said she loves me. I think she still loves me. I have hope. Maybe she needs some space. She said she can’t see me, it would be too hard for her. That she would want to kiss me. I told her that she should, then. She said we should just be friends. I’m going to tell her I can’t do that. I can’t be her friend. I’m going to talk to her. I think it will be okay. I’m going to see her tomorrow.”
The dark, sad boy talks to me on the phone. It’s been a long time since anyone has ever called me to talk. People don’t do that anymore. People don’t have anything to say.
It all sounds like everything I’ve ever heard before. He wants to talk to me, he wants me to listen, and I want to help him. It’s not good. It’s not a good situation for him. But he’s young. He doesn’t really listen to me. He wants it to be okay. He wants people to be better than they are. He wants his solution to be simple.
I’m not very good at this. I stutter and mumble and he laughs at me. But he understands. He catches on. It’s all simple, really.
He says “fucking” a lot. He uses it as an adjective, all the time but still unexpectedly, and I wince. “Yeah, the fucking phone.” “My brother is a fucking asshole.” “This guy is fucking funny, fucking funny.” The cursing increases when he’s happy, and decreases when he’s sad, along with all of his other words.
I decide, during the phone call, that I like this about him. I like people who are different, people who have things to say, people who say things in their own way.
“I fucking love Mega Man.”
“What is Mega Man?”
“It’s a game. It’s fucking hard.”
We talk for a few hours. I look at the clock and the time is passing and he says, “Wow, it’s midnight already.” A button is pressed and we leave each other. I become alone. It is quiet and dark.
I think about him, and people. How easy it is to enter someone else’s life. How easy it is to affect them. To care about them. To worry about them. To help them. It’s simple, really.
2. How much longer is “the news” on TV going to be a thing? The internet is way better/more efficient/effective/faster/way better. Yeah?
3. If your Facebook doesn’t say you’re single, and it doesn’t say you’re in a relationship, WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?
4. There’s no way anyone can mess up painting with watercolors. Instant artist. Just add water!
5. My grandpa taught me when I was little how to quickly tell how many days were in each month by using my knuckles. I guess I do have a party trick! But life is sort of like my knuckles, too. Up and down and flat. Moving and falling and staying. Over and over. Searching, growing, laying silently in failure on the ground. Yeah!! Thanks, grandpa.
6. That might have been the best thing ever written. You’re welcome, world.
7. OK here’s an important life question that I’ve been thinking about: Why don’t boys/other people in general just somehow magically know that you want to hang out with them without you having to say something to them?! Isn’t this the modern age? Why don’t we have this technology? SPARRRTAAAA. (Also, I’ve never seen 300.)
8. Have you noticed this, because I have: Everyone’s current favorite movies of all time are all from Netflix! Yeah, I saw Ida, too. I get it. But what else? There must be movies you’ve enjoyed before you got your Netflix account, right? I mean listing those is just sort of telling me what everyone else is watching right now. It doesn’t make you or your movies interesting! We need a new source of information. There must be thousands of movies/great short films we’re just completely missing out on because we’re spending all of our time scrolling through huge lists of movie titles on Netflix, all of which we’ve already read the descriptions of and turned down multiple times weeks ago!
9. Here’s a really great video for you if you haven’t seen it yet. Hank Green, guys! He totally gave me a high five once. (AKA he’s a credible source.)
10. Listen to yourself talk with other people. Are you a kind person? Try to be.
Would you rather live a year in complete darkness or a year with only sunshine? Could anything grow in the dark? How long could we survive?
My friend messages me from the other side of the world and asks for my address. There’s a letter for me there. It flew from America to Asia, and now it’s coming back again. Who is it from? Who do I even know in that state? There’s only one person I’ve written a letter to that lives there. Could it be? The sun shines in me.
Letters are like memories. Even though they’re written down, recorded, we forget them. I have no idea what I wrote in that letter. I don’t remember how long it was. I don’t remember what my handwriting looked like on the outside of the envelope.
Possibility. It’s a seed of unknown origin. Limitless. It could grow forever, into anything. Memories that haven’t been made yet. Words that have been written down but not read.
Balance is important. Half day, half night. Darkness is quiet, terrifying, calm. The sun is blinding but it lets us live, grows us, moves our skin. Balance. Humility and pride. Sadness and joy. Sorrow. Love.
My friend doodles tiny colorful monsters on paper. He paints them, creates them, shares them. Sells them for the big evil dollar. Nails them to trees. Talks about sunshine. Paints happiness on his feet. Looks like joy. The definition of.
I don’t know anyone purposefully living in darkness. But there are a lot of people who don’t have rainbows on their shoes. I’m getting older waiting for this letter to come. Another week or two. When I’m waiting, sitting under the mailbox, I watch my friends go by. They walk past me. Some don’t turn their heads. Some are too far away to see anymore. I wonder why my parents don’t have friends. I wonder why people stop loving each other. It’s not that hard. It’s worse to be alone. It’s harder in the darkness. It’s better to try to keep growing as a person.
I wonder where that slip of paper is. Anticipation. Focus. Mathematics and a brain-powered global positioning system. When? Who? What answers will it have? Did I ask questions? Will anything change? Will there be blinding sunlight in it? Sunglasses shaped like flowers? A thoughtless reply?
I’m thinking about that particular smear of pencil lead on the palm of my writing hand. How I can never paint anything very well at all because I don’t pick up my hand enough. That particular triangle shape of accidental art. But I think I wrote the letter in pen.
Wheels spinning on ground. Planes flying in air, high above us, that we still claim as our own. Not outer space. Travel. Thoughts. Responses. Emotions. Relationships. The final delivery, someone lightly stepping on the brake to insert the letter into my mailbox, months after it was first deposited into one and sent my way. Sent to where I was. Sending to where I am.
It will probably be light out when it arrives. Sun. Shine. Wind. The smell of winter. Cold. Ice on the ground. The feel of it. The corners of such a small, flat thing. Who knows?
Hey Infinity 