[iliikemycoffeecold]

there are things in life waiting for u so good that you wouldn’t know how to ask for them.

[iliikemycoffeecold]

you haven’t met everyone who’s going to love you yet

[iliikemycoffeecold]

always be open to love. when love arrives, welcome the feeling, sink into it, enjoy the moments and remember how it feels to feel like you've conquered the world with someone, remember how the butterflies feel and how it feels to watch the stars with the wind in your hair. to talk about your favourite things with someone you hope will stay forever. when love leaves, let it go. tell her to leave the door open behind her, let yourself heal. love comes exactly when it's supposed to, when you need it most and you don't even know, and love leaves exactly when it must.

[luxe-pauvre]

“A cornerstone of any sensible life philosophy is as follows: there are things you can control and there are things you can’t control, and it’s idiotic to trouble yourself about things you can’t control. The Stoics, a very practical school of philosophy in Ancient Greece and Rome, symbolised their belief system with the image of an archer. An archer can control which bow he chooses, which arrow he selects from his quiver, how far back he draws the bow and how still he holds it. But from the moment he lets the arrow fly, it’s beyond his control. A gust of wind may knock the arrow off course. Or it may break mid-flight. Or something might get between the flying arrow and its target. Or the target may move. Ninety-nine point nine per cent of all world events are outside your control. You have no influence on what’s happening in the world, where or how. It’s much more sensible to focus your energies on things you can control. Granted, this will be a much smaller world than the planet as a whole. But that’s just the way it is. You can influence what happens in your life, your family, your neighbourhood, your city, your job, but the rest you simply have to accept. The philosopher Epictetus offered another important argument two thousand years ago: ‘You become what you give your attention to … If you yourself don’t choose what thoughts and images you expose yourself to, someone else will.’ If you consume the news, you’re becoming another person, another character - a worse one than if you filled your mind with wise content. To achieve wisdom, we should choose 'a limited number of master thinkers and digest their works,’ suggested the philosopher Seneca (also two thousand years ago). Consuming the news is like a frantic, never-ending journey. 'When a person spends all his time in foreign travel,’ noted Seneca, 'he ends up having many acquaintances but no friends.’ The freedom to choose for ourselves what’s relevant is fundamental to a good life. More fundamental even than the freedom to express our opinions. An individual has the right not to be sent crazy by things that are clamorously pretending to be new and important. Our brains are full. We’ve got to cleanse them, detoxify them, free them of junk - not continually chuck in more. Reduction is far more benefits than addiction. Less is the new more.”

— Rolf Dobelli, Stop Reading the News

[metamorphesque]

— The Thing Is, Ellen Bass

[text ID: to love life, to love it even / when you have no stomach for it]

[iliikemycoffeecold]

i never write about the summer but i do tend to write about the things i’d like to keep safe a little too much. 18 feels terrifying and the best at the same time. i’m looking at daisies growing on the side of the road but trying not to crash the car i’m driving for the first time & the world is just as fascinating to me as it was a decade ago, i think. i hope that never changes. there are places in this city i’ll come back to in two years and you’ll be long gone and who knows, maybe we won’t even talk anymore. and i will walk back into that little store i haven’t been to since i stopped there after a run with a childhood best friend & we don’t even say hello anymore but the walls still look the same. the ice cream boxes & soda cans are on the same shelves and i know exactly where to go to find pieces of my heart - on aisle 4, on that little road that goes nowhere, that spot on the high school basketball court, the trees, the pond with 5 goldfish & 2 we can’t name. i do think there are places that have my heart. that one road at sunset. seven am at the park. the 10 minute drive to a best friend’s house. the 20 minute drive to our favourite pizza place. i just think there are so many memories hidden in little things & in three weeks everyone will be gone & i will still be here, with the sunsets that look like cotton candy and the pizza that tastes the same and the places i’ve made so many memories in. i’m really sinking into this weird in-between. enough for me to write about summer. to write about this city that i have the most love-hate relationship with. i’ll be here for you though, i’ll stay a little longer. maybe it’ll still be the same. maybe next time we’ll sip on cocktails under the moonlight & talk for hours & bake cupcakes. next time, maybe we’ll wish for a longer summer.

[firstfullmoon]

“So to talk about trees is to talk about our attachment to them. Our longing for them to be okay. To talk about trees then is also to talk about each other, the ways we are attached to what is living and how much we want it to go on doing just that for as long as possible. It is never only trees, but what binds us together, the trees, the roots, the eternal part of us that is both the seed and the tree.”

— Ada Limón, from Shelter: A Love Letter to Trees

[dauen]

— Summer by Louise Glück (The Triumph of Achilles, 1985)

[canthaveshitingotham-crucified]

i hate it when i cant even write a poem about something because its too obvious. like in the airbnb i was at i guess it used to be a kids room cause you could see the imprint of one little glow in the dark star that had been missed and painted over in landlord white. like that's a poem already what's the point

[canthaveshitingotham-crucified]

you get it. you get the themes. i dont have time to do it justice. just look at it its on the ceiling

[a-quiet-green-agreement]

And I lose you again in the azure of a perfect summer night.

— Carole Maso, Aureole

[iliikemycoffeecold]

i just think it’s amazing how there’s these moments when you’re a teenager when the world feels alive. we’re eighteen and eight at the same time. i still get excited when i see the ocean like i did when we drove 45 minutes to the beach every weekend. i still watch the stars like i did when i was fifteen but life has happened and everything feels so different & i just sit there and listen to songs that consume me & i’m glad. i know nothing and i know everything. i have no clue where i’ll be in the next few months & it is the thing that terrifies me the most right now but i’m taking in the last moments i get with the people i love. if i could i’d send everyone flowers & give out lots of hugs. i want to tell people i love them, always. i want to be reckless & write about the evenings i don’t post about & first kisses & the prettiest art galleries where, for a few minutes, everything’s alright. there’s this part of being a teenager where you just don’t know but you also feel like you’re conquering the world. some days, i don’t get out of bed & on the others, i fall madly in love with everything. with the dog that wakes me up in the morning & the coffee i can only drink occasionally, the mirrors in the hotel lobby and the way the lights reflected on the swimming pool last weekend / maybe this is the most free i’ll ever be, creatively. maybe all the poets are right when they say you don’t live again like you do when you’re 18. i’ve never even been in love yet. there’s so much of a life to live, so much partying & so much to look forward to if i just take everything one step at a time. it all makes sense in the bigger picture, i hope. until then, i want to put in all the effort i can & make all the art & call it dreaming. i want to write & capture the world in art & have goals that aren’t just pretty in my head, you know? i want to meet those goals, be successful. live a lot. but mostly, i’d like to be eight years old again, smell the ocean & drive towards the horizon, fall asleep to the moon & dream about the starfish.

[fairycosmos]

not to be earnest and sincere but using this site really is starting to feel like a genuinely unique and enjoyable experience compared to most other social media apps and how they operate now. and i think all of the cringe i used to feel at still being on tumblr after all these years is turning into unabashed fondness for the people and the environment on here

[petrichara]

There’s an ache of eighteen. In the back of the car with your mother. In your childhood friend’s home. In hallways you’ve walked a thousand times. In the shortcut home from school. In the marks on the wall long outgrown. In your last assignment. In packing your life into boxes. In a space with people you grew up and apart with. This will not come again.

Life returns to fleeting moments that must be gripped tightly for fear of losing them; you return to the kitchen floor.

The edge of childhood. Please take my hand. Please don’t let go.

[quotemadness]

“I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive.”

— Joseph Campbell

[mossyshadows]

wait someone remind me to finish this later and also add those authors to my tbr. thanks https://www.thewhitereview.org/feature/interview-with-ocean-vuong/

[yms1]

“and if they want to leave, hold the door open for them.”

[iliikemycoffeecold]

that scene where anthony brings kate tulips in bridgerton has my heart i love tulips