secretly enjoyed

8. Being rejected. It gives me a chance to practice my generosity: my overtures weren’t accepted but maybe the very offering was a needed gift. And would I begrudge that, even to someone who doesn’t know how to decline gracefully, how to navigate the weird, tidally-complex waters between greed (for affection, for being wanted, for love) and self-denial (for the sake of the wished-for One who hasn’t yet arrived on-scene)? I wouldn’t: people are hungry; they sometimes can’t help but take the nourishment from your hands and then run. Give it, if you want to avoid having it stolen.

Read: Thought Catalog.

what happens

You will be schizoid, in closer communion with your earlier selves than is considered usual. It will not make you less mature, but it will make you more compassionate toward your own teenage self, and everyone else’s too. You will practice forgiveness at an epic scale... [...]

You will be cured of any lingering adolescent ills, by the only person who can cure you, the one you’d have loved silently and passively when you were twenty, whom you’re somehow allowed to love now just as you would have wished to then. By some startling error in bookkeeping, you are permitted a do-over, one that erases (or at least detoxifies) the missed chances and regrets that we all carry over. [...]

Read: Thought Catalog.

Years

I recognized her instantly as one of his kind: golden and soft with unexpected fiery bits, inspiring erotic and motherly urges at once. They were the same: clothes seemed obscene, yet you naturally wanted to imagine them protected and well cared for, if only to avoid breaking your own heart on the possibility that they’d wilt under a less-than-gentle sun, or simply break somehow.

Read: thickjam.

why

Because I have seen you. I have seen you sleeping in the garden on a rare warm day, feet up on a chair and headphones in your ears; I’ve seen you laughing in a pub with a second beer in your hand, more relaxed than you’ll ever be again once a few more years have passed. I’ve seen you, a sweet boy at age 12 or so smiling squintingly into the camera, which I’ll bet was held by your mom. I’ve seen you as your father, somehow still gangling and awkward in middle age but aching with love for his children. (I watched him find an excuse to tousle your hair one day long after you were too old for that; you’ll do the same someday, exactly the same). [...]

Read: Thought Catalog.

rain

Everyone has headaches, attributing them variously to the damp chill that easily permeates our loose layers (our standard defense against the dry cold we`re used to), the diffused, directionless light, the not-unpleasant but still unnervingly constant percussion of rain against our buildings, the low pressure system (no one knows quite what this is, but we all suspect it of being unnatural, and exactly the kind of thing that could easily cause headaches).

We do not (except for small children) usually have rain slickers and galoshes in this part of the country. We do have umbrellas, which we store in our cars forever, appreciating the sense of adult preparedness they give us, along with occasional reminders of our mothers. But we lack protocols for coping with their wet unwieldiness inside buildings and houses (a hybrid bat/stick insect monster, as we try to shake the water from its taut wings and maneuver it into a stable resting position so it can dry itself) so we seldom unfurl them.

Read: Thought Catalog.