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.

taking cues

Do you ever notice that when you’re talking to different people, you talk slightly differently with each one? Or maybe with a certain group, it’s different from the next.

Do you ever notice that you’ve picked up some of their speaking habits, inflections, pet phrases?

At first, I thought it was high school again when I was accused of trying to be someone else, because I was unconsciously emulating my (I thought then) closest friend.

Then I realized what I think is a lovely* thing: I have a bit of every one in me and every one has a bit of me.

I guess, then, that when we find our bits that match, we use those bits to communicate. Only usually, the only way to find it is take cues from the other person.

*On another note, they have to make up new words for “wonderful” because it’s just been used so many times that it appears to lose meaning. All the other words in the Thesaurus don’t seem appropriate. “Lovely” is the closest I could get, here, but it doesn’t quite fit either.

That is not to say that it isn’t wonderful that wonderful is used so much, because that would mean that there is so much that is wonderful to speak about!

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.

smiles

There is a power in telling someone how much you’d like to see them smile, how much you love when they do, how much you hope they will.

There is a difference between these things I’ve said and telling them to smile. The difference may be more or less pronounced, depending on the person.

The power is in knowing that your happiness matters to someone else. Quite simply, that you are loved.

It is so powerful that you can’t help but pass it on.

—

(from a sermon on Sunday afternoon)

“I believe that if every one of the six billion people on earth would do these three things:

(1) realize they’ve done something wrong;
(2) be sorry for it; and
(3) do some little thing to make it better

there would be peace in the world.”