How about a dance with a teddy bear? In a rainbow, a-line skater dress, no less, that flares out so you can’t see your feet while you twirl that fluffy brown stuffed animal until you’re not sure anymore which is spinning, you or the world. And the only way to find out is to fall to your knees, in supplication and in a heap of laughter. You laugh and giggle, until it hurts, and before you know it, the world is right again. You just amused yourself out of discomfort and brought yourself back to balance.
Do you really need a greater awareness than this?
Anyway.
Tomorrow, when you’re a 45 yo adult, you’ll forget. When you age past 20, you start to forget a lot of things. Mainly things that made you laugh. Laughter is trivial. Happiness doesn’t cut deep. But you remember every single heartache and every dumb thing you’ve ever done. Because how else would you avoid those things that make you feel again if you chose not to remember them? So you put these thoughts on the moment you get out of bed, brush your teeth with them, so that when you look in the mirror, it’s almost impossible to see anything else.
At the start of the 20th century, upper class Germans and Austrians would purposely have their faces sliced open in fencing duels as a sign of their bravery, honor, and elite status. You do the same. Except you slice yourself open and raw over a pumpkin spice latte, chatting it up with Stacy, also doing the same on her end, and discussing the weather. Hello, numbness, my old friend.
Until you see a girl, in pigtails and a rainbow dress, spinning her teddy bear in the air and you step out of your reality, to join her.
