—I’M DOIN’ THE HARD STUFF, I’M DOIN’ MY TIME

  

…It turns out that trying to stay alive can end up being awfully expensive.

 

…The other day, I told my best friend that I’d probably die if I stopped writing. It came across very melodramatic, but it was still a true, and authentic, declaration.

 

…Genius is an over-used word. I won’t say that Lana Del Rey is a genius, but she’s pretty effing close. Just listen to “The Grants” or "Mariner’s Apartment Complex,” or all of “Norman F***ing Rockwell.”

 

…What am I so afraid of? I really wish I knew.

 

…Thank God for poetry. It’s saved me so many times.

 

…I wrote and wrote and wrote yesterday. Each piece was as dark, or darker, than the next. You can call me Nick Drake, if you’d like. Or you can call me Betty, and I’ll call you Al.

 

…I wonder if other people prioritize safety, feeling safe with someone, as much as I do.

 

…Sometimes, sitting in traffic, I wonder where all those people are going, what they’re worrying about, what their lives are like at that exact moment. We’re just strangers in cars, but still I wonder.

 

…Some people can say, “I love you,” so easily and actually mean it, but some can’t say it at all, though they really do mean it.

 

…You get to a point in your life where about all you feel is gratitude. Older and wiser is definitely a real thing.

 

…Other than, “She Had Me at Heads Carolina,” this is the song I’ve most had stuck in my head of late:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4G9LwTTnn_k

 

…Be calm. Be calm. Be calm.

 

…Yesterday I watched the rain for hours.

 

...Having too much of everything can often feel like having nothing at all.

 

…“I’d like to explore the possibility that you can live with this.”

 

...No one wants to feel pitiful, even if they are.

…Loneliness is a kind of brutal torture. And the thing is, there’s no one to blame but yourself.

 

…“Do you believe you pose a present danger to yourself?”

 

…I always wonder if happy people are genuinely happy. I’m really glad they seem that way, and I’m envious, but still I wonder.

 

…My fingers always seem to want more than they have, twitching like jelly fish for something just out of reach.

 

…If Jesus ends up not being real, I’m not really sure how God can forgive him.

 

…But I will say (again), that without forgiveness, we’d all be fucked. 

 

…I’m not sure if it’s so good to sit with your own thoughts this long.

 

…“If that was a fifth, we’d all be fucking drunk.” Your Honor

 

…It’s incredible the things we can take for granted, like the simple smell of perfume on skin.

 

…I suppose there are better, healthier things, to think about, but I can’t always control where my disobedient mind scurries to.

 

…I often find myself wondering what Jesus thinks of everything that’s going on. But then I realize, he knew the plot all along.

 

…Patience isn’t inaction, but it’s just as annoying and difficult.

 

…Some parents defy logic and convention, and never die. For instance, mine are right here, slightly off in a corner, watching me type these words.

 

…When I was seven or eight, my mother staged a runaway. It was snowing, windy wet sheets of slush. We walked a few frigid miles until my father drove up, flashing his brights, drunker than a scarecrow. If I’d had more sense, I would have run that night, and never stopped running.

 

…Every time I sleep in Lucy’s room, I think I hear her scratching herself. It’s incredible how real that sounds.

 

…“We all have our shit.”--Karen Stefano. She’s right. Yep.

 

…I think there are some things you just don’t want to know and that it’s wise to not want to know them. But then that’s just one opinion.

 

…It’s going to rain this weekend. It’s going to be gray gray gray. But I’m going to soak it all up nonetheless.

 

…Be well. Tell someone you love them, if you really mean it, and look them straight in the eye.