“He thought, perhaps, that the next city would have brighter streetlights to guide his friend home; and the candle on his bedside table would shine just a little brighter than the rest so that one night, he would hear a knock on his door that belonged to an older version of that same boy he had known so well over a decade ago.”
— on an arduous old wound, an excerpt from Woodrow
Thursday, May 16th
I believe in a time when the spoken word was as concrete as a legal document; when men were gentlemen and women were ladies; when feeling a little under the weather was not exaggerated into a chronic disease; when hard work translated into food on one’s table, not taxes stripped from one man and given to another; when marriage lasted a lifetime; when children were raised, not sent to daycares; and when an idea made us individually stronger, not collectively dependent.
If you say “old sport” three times in front of your mirror Gatsby will appear and awkwardly hit on your wife
(via glorious--popcorn)
Wednesday, May 15th
So I had an hour long break today down at the Central Library and after I had lunch and all that, I just sat in the library and watched people. For 45 minutes, I just saw how different we all are and I realized that not a single person there was the ‘ideal’ human; and it made me wonder if those really exist. Hundreds of people go into that library each day and they were all exactly that — just people going about their lives like you and I. Yet we all have this impression that we’re the only ones with some extra stuffing on our belly or flat dull hair, or that we’re the only ones not wearing expensive clothes. But it’s not that they’re ugly, it’s just that we have this idea in our head of what people should be, when in reality, nobody is like that. And they are beautiful no matter what. They have personalities and journeys and thoughts, and that matters so much more than what the world says we should look like. Like why do looks even matter when you think about it? Everyone needs to go to a public place and just watch the world. I think you’ll realize that it’s okay to not be ‘perfect’.
Monday, May 13th
Being unhappy has become a terribly glorified thing. It is more difficult for people to admit to themselves that they are lucky, that there is really no grand reason to be unhappy, than it is to admit that they are sad. We read these things that pretend like depression is beautiful and we reflect on how profound it is to be hurt or lost or alone. Maybe it’s the idea that being happy means inexperience and we all want to be seen as weathered souls who understand ‘it’; or maybe we are determined that pain is happiness. But when you forget what makes you happy, when you pretend for so long that life is a miserable thing, you start to believe it. And you just become fragile and isolated until there really isn’t much light in your life anymore. It’s tragic that we only realize how wrong our perceptions were when it’s too late. This ‘popular belief’ of negativity, of confusing misery with strength, is killing people; literally killing people you knew or could have met.
