I called him a kid and I didn't mean it. I just wanted him to remember this is only the beginning. Not only the beginning of a lot of problems and a lot of heart ache, but the beginning of life. Not because his feelings were invalid but because soon the whole thing would be put into perspective. And then he would be even less of a kid. There is a part in Perks of Being a Wallflower (cliche I know)
where Charlie sees a bunch of kids sledding on a hill and he starts to think about how someday these kids are going to have to get jobs and kiss somebody and grow up but not until later. And how right now sledding is enough for them and that's all they have to care about and how he wishes that's all anybody had to care about. And I think that's what it comes down to really. That's how you know you aren't a kid anymore. The more things you care about the more years you add onto your heart. That's why the Presidents all look so old. I think that's why growing up is so confusing for everyone, I know people in high school who are more grown up than people in college and maybe that's the sad part of it all. The heartache that people feel in their youth should be celebrated. It means your becoming. It means your finding things and allowing them inside of you and allowing them to move you. I'll let you in on a secret, people don't say that these were the best years of their lives because that's when they had the most fun, no, you'll have fun your whole life. It doesn't even out and suddenly become a smooth ride, you'll always have something to worry about. The reason people say these were the best years of their lives is because they became who they are. There are few things more painful than becoming, but few things more rewarding than knowing who we are. People say you can go throughout your whole life without ever living it, but no one ever tells you that you can age without actually growing up.
"We never know the wine we are becoming while we are being crushed like grapes."
-Henri Nouwen
"I got tired, I told him. Not worn out, but worn through. Like one of those wives w ho wakes up one morning and says I can't bake any more bread.
You never bake bread, he wrote, and we were still joking.
Then it's like I woke up and baked bread, I said, and we were joking even then. I wondered will there come a time when we won't be joking? And what would it look like? And how would that feel?
When I was a girl, my life was music that was always getting louder. Everything moved me. A dog following a stranger. That made me feel so much. A calender that showed the wrong month. I could have cried over it. I did. Where the smoke from the chimney ended. How an overturned bottle rested at the edge of a table.
I spent my life learning to feel less.
Every day I felt less.
Is that growing old? Or is it something worse?
You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.”
