not to sully: twenty and certain

This is so beautiful on so many levels that I won’t say anything else for fear of ruining it.

from nevergirl

The last time I slept underneath the stars, I remember, I was in love. The moon looked like it had been spun out of stories and silver; and the sky was so clear I felt I could look up, fall into it, and slip unnoticed among the stars. I was young, and happy, and in love, and my world at that moment whirled around the big blue sky above me and the boy I was writing love letters to. Even now, all I have to do is close my eyes and I’d be there again, twenty years old and so certain in my happiness I’m sure my face glowed like the stars above me.

wallpaper

She traced the blue dots on the wall. They ran down the height of it, over and over around the yellow room. She wondered why she couldn’t feel the dots, wondered why she couldn’t understand why there were so many people in this little house.

People with sad faces, who looked at her with pity-filled eyes that quickly looked away, murmuring to each other, shaking their heads.

She stared at the dots and squinted her eyes so that they looked like solid lines instead. Then she looked at the people and imagined they were just one big mass of person. One big person she could reach out and hug and cuddle.

But her eyes refocused and it was all strangers again.

eric

My phone (a Sony Ericsson W300i) is lovingly nicknamed “Eric.” Eric does not know how to swear. His SMS vocabulary does not include certain four-letter words that we know and love.

But I do. Half of the time, I am not proud of it. Some of the time, I kind of am. Much like the way smoking makes a kid feel all cool and grown up. Some of the time, there is simply no other way I see fit to express how I feel other than to repeat them under my breath like a backwards mantra.

Most of the time, I don’t even know why… they just pop out… not so much that I startle people on the street, thankfully, but enough to make me wonder where the H they came from.

They’re just words. Said in anger or frustration, sometimes extreme dislike (because ‘hate’ is a word I’d really rather not use although it too is merely a word). It’s all about context because the same words could be used to express delight or fondness.

One girlfriend often tells me she hates me. She wrinkles her nose and rolls her eyes and says, “I hate you!” in this slightly higher-pitched voice. She says this virtually every time we’re together because I always tease her so lovingly.

Yet people are offended by words, no matter what the context. I don’t blame them completely, especially if they have spent all their lives knowing that it’s wrong. And we all know how hard it is to change things that you’ve just known all your life.

I have long been fine living in a bubble and not needing to know what is going on in the world. But it’s been increasingly difficult to ignore the world beyond my doorstep and stay sane at the same time. You can’t not care anymore.

Which is why it would be so wonderful if everyone could understand that there is an infinite number of possible objectives behind the same four letters… and stop to notice that this person (from which the four letters are coming) has a genuine smile on their face and looks eager to have a meaningful conversation.

If people stepped out of the circles they usually mingle in, and were open to discovering different points of view… if only.

he would stare

He would. And stare. And stare. And smile, his eyes twinkling, the apples of his cheeks rising, his beginnings-of-a-mustache twitching.

And I would smile, and stare into the black pools of his eyes.

And time would stop.

Or it seemed to, and how often we wished it would.