Papertowns

I know I’m bad at showing it, but I really do love you. Have you noticed how I always smile when I see you? How my friends all know your name? How I keep sending messages even when you don’t reply? How I remember those little things about you? Did you know that I kept that dumb little rock you once gave me? And the movie tickets? I may be bad at letting it show, I may be too reserved, too quiet, too used to hiding how I feel, but I want you to know… I love you.

things change when they don’t have to

everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see.

We’re so different. We’re hot and cold, fire and water. I’m loud, you’re quiet. I talk, you listen. I’m crazy, you’re sane, but that’s why this works… You fill in my missing pieces and I complete you, and I guess that’s why, despite the questions and the challenges, I still believe in us and I still believe in this… and as long as we have each other, I think we’ll be alright.

And ultimately, they find out everything: How you chew, how you sip, how you hum, how you dance. How you smell at every point in the day, how you are on the phone with your mother, the fact that many of your friends are shallow, that you always have to sit on the aisle, how you never really listen, how whiny you get when you travel, how you’re not gracious to her friends when they call, how certain game shows make you really really happy, how cranky you get because you’re too stupid to remember to eat, how you manage to get confrontational only when it’s with the absolute wrong person to be yelling at, how you don’t like the way you look in any picture you’ve taken since 1973, how you’re unable to get off the phone when you’re running late because you don’t have the ability to say, “This isn’t a good time; can I call you back?” How you have to lick certain fruits before actually eating them, how you have no ability to save receipts - all these things, and they still want to sign on. They still like you.

Maybe you had to leave in order to really miss a place; maybe you had to travel to figure outhow beloved your starting point was.