Go On Now, Peel Your Clementine

In the end, the only currency your pain with accept is time.
-Victoria Hutchins

Sometimes when I really like the bathroom soap, I wash my hands twice. Romantic isn’t it? My way of asking: Can we just stay here a bit longer? May I linger? How many more minutes until the rush starts? Let me remind you, we are here to marvel, get intoxicatingly drunk off of art, potential, passion, imagination. Can’t you see there is a child underneath all of these pieces of armor? Be gentle. I promise you are better like this, because of this, we love you, I adore you. I should buy more books! I should hang more artwork! The kitchen always has dishes in the sink but at least you know people live here, we live here. Easy to lose but hard to kill.

Next time you’re in the shower you should make a new hairstyle with soap. And might I remind you, seventh grade you could make a perfectly decent S’more in the microwave. People who really see you, they know how you cricket your feet together and sometimes wear mixed up matching pj sets, maybe this is what we love most? When someone tells you on the street that they love your smile, you will respond with “thanks for giving me a reason to use it!” Reminder: you will need to buy a Menorah as well as a Christmas tree this year as one of your roommates will be Jewish, and you will think about how lucky we are to celebrate so much! One day, you will want to buy a really expensive flower and pluck all the petals off one by one chanting, he loves me, he loves me not. I just have to find out who he is. I think it is coming, be patient you silly goose.

Go on now, peel your clementine, slowly. Don’t bite off that much, even if you can chew it. There is meaning here, I mean it. We are 25, we are so young. You little sprout, remember when you were just a seed, look at your petals now, look at how strong you are.