Left Behind in Grand Rapids
I forgot that figuring out life does not always mean getting a job or going to grad school.
I forgot that figuring out life does not always mean getting a job or going to grad school.
There comes a point in Tinder messaging where you’ve proven yourselves worthy of exchanging actual text messages.
I hope you find these entry updates linguistically accurate and culturally abhorrent.
So often we tell ourselves to live in the moment, or seize the day, or be present, or rest in the now. But what does that all mean?
I attribute my low maintenance, self-motivation, amiable attitude, and ability to work eighty-hour workweeks to my philosophy of not minding anything.
I feel sort of like Cinderella using every available moment to frantically clean up my life so that I might finally get what I want, except I have no animals, no magic, and no shoes made of glass (thank god).
Perhaps the trick isn’t finding the perfect place, the perfect pen, the perfect aesthetic, the correct combination of elbow patches, pipe smoke, and whiskey. Perhaps the trick is simply to not have a trick.
It frustrates me to hear people complain that they feel like they’re choosing between two evils or that they’ll just stay home on Election Day or that they’ll pack up and move to Canada if things don’t go their way.
ENTER: EVERYTHING THAT IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD AND ME. Some might call the cut and color of her clothes bold and loud, while others might use the word “garish.”
I drag around furniture, scramble on top of kitchen counters. I dust, I sweep, I wipe. I also bleach and mop, neaten, vacuum, air, fluff, and polish.
Reaching through the grated door, I run a fingertip along the tiny white foreleg of a tiny white lamb curled on the straw inside. He slid into the world less than a week ago beside his glossy black sister.
I could almost hear his eyes glazing over. The remove in his voice suggested that the ocean between us was a puddle compared to the expanse between our brains.
Let the sky be wide open and full of good possibilities. Wonder why the sky is blue. Wonder how the earth suspends in space. Wonder how you came to live under this beautiful blue sky in this small corner of the universe.
I don’t like planning anything. Plans may have good intentions, but they always end up a little too strict. Like Professor McGonagall.
You wanted to see if you could get an appointment soon?! Like, within the year of our Lord 2016?! Don’t you know how busy we are?
The dancers separate into groups of eight and begin the dance. There’s nothing quite like the sound of hundreds of wooden shoes clomping along the asphalt in rhythm. Or the semblance of rhythm.
This was a tantrum that got out of hand, causing me to forget that my desires are not the most important thing in the world.
I could feel the wind teasing my pigtails. I was positively gliding. Then I glanced backward, realized my dad was no longer behind me, and promptly fell off the bike.
Terminal A is actually still a part of the old Soviet Union, and has been under construction since before planes were a thing. Want food? One option: The Earl of Sandwich.
Pastors aren’t just professionals, they’re sisters and brothers in Christ with the rest of the congregation… so does that mean they can be friends?
3. A clean sink goes a long way. Even if your carpet hasn’t seen a vacuum in months, do the damn dishes.
I want selfless people to have blissful, perfect lives. When I argue with someone about selfishness—“it’s a virtue. The Golden Rule just makes betas feel better about not standing up for themselves”—I want to point to loving families and say, “See? This is possible. This is good,” but I can’t.
I know several people who met online and then made up a meet cute to tell friends and family. There’s less of a stigma around meeting online today, but it’s still not considered especially romantic.
He took a lap around the vehicle, got in the driver’s seat, and tried the key. The van roared to life… as if nothing had been wrong, as if it were just born, as if it were doing it just to spite me. I stared at the van in silence.
It all turned out fine. We weren’t abducted or murdered in our beds. Our host, whom we met later that evening, turned out to be sweet and ostensibly normal.
I’m not painting out such writers, or any writers, for that matter, to be dull; rather, what’s been more fascinating, and all the more reassuring, is that such giants were people first and writers second.
People aren’t talking about the twenty-two-year-old case workers crying in their cubicles at the end of a particularly hard day.