Space Junk

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[whitepaperquotes]

[euphorictruths]

[breakuppoetry]

[marljin]

[missingwordslostlyrics]

Your Graduation - Modern Baseball

[quotemadness]

“Don’t you want to be alive before you die?”

— Anthony Doerr

[humansofnewyork]

“The adoption wouldn’t even have gotten approved today. But Mom wrote a letter to the Chinese government explaining why a quadriplegic man could be a good father, and the application was accepted. I’ve known the story my entire life. Dad got in a bad car accident when he was twenty-four. And Mom met him while working as a nurse in the ICU. She said his calmness was the first thing she noticed. Most people cry when they’re told they’ll never walk again, but Dad was silent. He was like that my entire life. So calm and level-headed. His parenting style was to ‘sit back and watch.’ He had no other choice. He could only guide me with his words. When it was time for me to walk, he just said: ‘Stand up and walk, Princess.’ And I did. He taught me to ride a bike by explaining the physics of it. My problems eventually became more complex, but he was always there in his same way. If I was panicking over a test, he’d bet me a dollar that I could pass it. That became our thing. Whenever I was feeling unsure, he’d bet me a dollar. As my anxiety got worse, he studied psychology. He’d walk me through coping strategies. He’d say things like: ‘Are you catastrophizing this?’, ‘Have you ever failed a class before?’, ‘What evidence do you have that this time will be different?’ I hated being the emotional one. I never wanted him to feel like the reason I was messed up. If he could handle being a quadriplegic, why couldn’t I cope with being the daughter of one? But it was so hard. From a young age, I had to help him with so much. And I was such a shy kid. I looked different than everyone else. It was a lot of stress. But he did everything he could for me. In the only way he knew how, by encouraging me, and believing in me. He started getting really sick in August of 2017. It was some kind of cancer, but we didn’t even get it checked. Because we knew he couldn’t survive the chemo. I sat at the foot of his bed during his final days, filling out my law school applications. Of course I was panicking. I was convinced that I wouldn’t get accepted anywhere. But he kept reassuring me. And he was right. Even if he didn’t live to see the results, he knew. ‘I’ll bet you a dollar,’ he told me.”

[weltenwellen]

Lori Gottlieb, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed

[humansofnewyork]

“Mom died on the first day of school.  She’d been really sick that entire summer.  And she passed away on a Monday.  At 7 AM.  Almost exactly the time I’d be leaving for school.  I don’t think I fully grasped how traumatic it was for me.  I was there when she took her last breath.  I comforted my little sister while she said goodbye.  And the next week I had to start classes at a brand new school.  I was a junior at the time.  All the teachers knew what happened.  And they had told all the students, so everyone was pitying me when I showed up.  I met Alex that very first day.  We were in choir together.  We became friends almost immediately, but we didn’t start dating until we were both cast as leads in Seussical The Musical.  We became more serious during college, and we ended up getting married right after graduation.  I felt so sad that my mom couldn’t see any of it.  Every time a big event would happen, it would be like, she’s not here.  And she’s never going to be here.  I was a moody, shitty teenager when she died.  And I’m having this whole life where I become the person I’m supposed to be, and she doesn’t get to see any of it.  She’s not going to see me graduate.  She’s not going to meet my children.  And it especially sucks that she’ll never get to meet Alex.  We lit a lantern at our wedding to signify that my mom was still with us.  It was a beautiful ceremony, and afterwards we took our honeymoon in Hawaii.  A few days into the trip, I received a call from my oldest friend Meredith.  She sounded excited.  She’d just discovered a picture of our childhood soccer team, and there was a boy who looked just like Alex.  When I showed Alex the photo, he confirmed that it was him, he’d played goalie on that team.  I just started laughing.  It was such a God moment.  It was a moment when everything felt connected.  Alex and I had known each other as children, back when my mom was still alive.  The first thing I did was call my dad.  I asked him if he remembered anything about the Swan’s Dermatology Soccer Team.  ‘I remember the goalie,’ he replied. ‘During the games he’d always sit down in the net and play with the dirt.  And your mother thought it was hilarious.’” #quarantinestories

[humansofnewyork]

“I met Jacob at a house party. I was nineteen. I’d just moved to New York from Brazil. Right away we became inseparable. It was the first time that either of us had been in love. Even though he was a little younger, Jacob taught me so much. I remember he used to read me Dr. Seuss books to help with my English. After dating for a few months, we decided to move to Rio De Janeiro together. We got married at the courthouse so he’d have Brazilian residency, but we did the rebel socialist thing. I was in a T-shirt. Both of us wore jeans. We stayed in Rio for seven months. We had our own house. No parents around. We went to the beach all the time. But we were too young to make a relationship work. Disagreements became bigger than they needed to be. It seems to be all or nothing when you’re young. Either everything is perfect, and you’re reading Dr. Seuss, or everything is horrible. At one point Jacob decided he wasn’t ready to be married, and we ended up going our separate ways. Over the years we lost touch.  I did call him once in 1990, and we had a wonderful conversation.  But by that time he was engaged, and he politely asked me not to contact him again.  I admired his integrity and respected his wishes.  Both of us got married. Then both of us got divorced. And I didn’t think about him for a long time. But on June 17th of 2018, I was watching an early-morning World Cup game, and I got a message on LinkedIn. It was from Jacob. He said he’d been drinking a cup of coffee, and was reminded of an inside joke we had. That led to a three hour phone conversation. Which led to a ten day trip to visit him in Michigan. I remember how strange it was when we embraced at the airport. We were the same people, but we were almost sixty. We’d lived through so much.  He had a little bit of a belly.  And so did I. We poured our hearts out over the next ten days. We didn’t spend all our time in the bedroom.  We spent our time talking. We talked about our difficult childhoods. Our mental health struggles. We talked about who we were back then, and how much we’d grown. At the end of the trip we decided to start a life together. We’re in a different season now. We’re kinder to each other. We know how to name things. And how to have difficult conversations. It’s not like back then. When we were young– we thought we knew everything. And we suffered so much for it. Because we barely knew anything at all.”  #quarantinestories

[catchymemes]

[quotemadness]

“I want a soulmate who can sit me down, shut me up, tell me ten things I don’t already know, and make me laugh. I don’t care what you look like, just turn me on. And if you can do that, I will follow you on bloody stumps through the snow….I will do your windows. I will care about your feelings. Just have something in there.”

— Henry Rollins

[quotemadness]

“It is okay to be at a place of struggle. Struggle is just another word for growth. Even the most evolved beings find themselves in a place of struggle now and then. In fact, struggle is a sure sign to them that they are expanding; it is their indication of real and important progress. The only one who doesn’t struggle is the one who doesn’t grow. So if you are struggling right now, see it as a terrific sign — and celebrate your struggle.”

— Neale Donald Walsch

[malunadean]

[eruptedxvolcano]

(via younglvck, malunadean)

[humansofnewyork]

“I just feel like I should be doing better.  I’m nowhere near retirement.  I’m working two jobs: I’m a licensed tour guide, and I make videos for businesses.  But even that’s not enough, so recently I’ve started working for the census.  I don’t want to run down the census: it’s fine, it’s great, it’s important work.  But I’m ashamed of it.  Because I’m sixty-five years old, I’m a college graduate, and I’m supposed to be done by now.  I’m supposed to be coasting.  But I’m not even close.  I feel like I still don’t even have a grip on the basics: how to make a living, how to keep my house in order, how to take care of myself.  And it feels shameful.  I feel not grown up.  Like I should have learned all of this so long ago.  And I’m afraid people will think it’s pathetic.  Worse than that.  They’ll think I’m incapable.  So I’ve been keeping a lot hidden.  I haven’t even told my colleagues about the census.  And that’s one thing I’m trying to work on— not keeping things hidden.  Because I know this shame isn’t healthy.  It isn’t right.  I’m luckier than 99 percent of people.  I’ve been sober for 39 years.  I have the greatest wife of 32 years.  I don’t have any crippling debt.  I’m doing OK.  I shouldn’t have to hide my situation.  And being more open has helped.  Because once I start telling people, and I see they’re not judging me, and that they’re still loving me, the shame tends to disappear.”

[humansofnewyork]

“My football career ended in 2013 when my shoulder popped out of its socket.  I was never going pro.  So that final whistle was always going to blow after my senior year, but the injury sped up the inevitable.  And I was left without a sense of purpose.  That’s one great thing about football.  There’s a clarity there.  I knew the season began on August 23rd and ended November 15th.  I knew we had to score more points.  I knew my job on every play.  I knew where the endzone was.  The purpose was tangible, the lines were literally on the field.  In the real world things aren’t so clear.  I feel like 300 years ago it was easier to know why you’re working.  Obviously things were more difficult, but at least on the Oregon Trail you knew what to focus on.  There were so many basic needs that required your attention: warmth, shelter, food, water.  But I’ve been lucky, and right now those basic needs require very little of my attention.  Necessity has been replaced by ‘nice to have.’  But do I really need more space?  Or better clothes?  Or a nicer car?  I’m not sure, but I still go to work every day.  I seem to be driven by some vague feeling that things could maybe be better.”

[middleamerica]

Couple in the subway, Paris, 1986, Dolores Marat