2004-12-14
still sweet
What is to be said for youth? And what of losing it as the time passes by? What is in a designated year number, and why does it seem so big and unfitting? I feel twelve. I Am sixteen. That's how we say it. Like it's the definition of our identity. No, I am not sixteen. I am Happy. I am Everything. I'll celebrate my life, I will. I'm not dumb enough to not realize how good it is.
I decided today within my frivolous stress of a school assignment very important to me that fate is completely nonexistant. In no way have our lives been laid out before us. We decide every thing that happens, every thing that we can control. All the other occurences are the doing of others that affects us. Destiny, I think not. There is not some intricate scheme. We do what we will, it is our choice. Nothing is meant to Be. I can't better explain.
Despite any apparent lack of relevance, I was thinking of The Sunscreen Song today. It comes off as a little pretentious and worldly in that pseudo-philosophical and sentimental way, but I think it's familiar to my style. I wonder how she felt when she wrote it. Good. She probably thinks it is better than everyone else thinks it is. Good for her. It's fine, swell.
The lyrics to Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen, by Mary Schmich:
Wear sunscreen.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.
Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.
Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.
Do one thing every day that scares you.
Sing.
Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.
Floss.
Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.
Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.
Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.
Stretch.
Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.
Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.
Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.
Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.
Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.
Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.
Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.
Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.
Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.
Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.
Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.
Respect your elders.
Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.
Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.
Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.
But trust me on the sunscreen.
Still Barely Sweet. Thinking back to the events of the coming morning seventeen years ago. Nine months before that. 11 years before that (marriage), and so on. Am I possibly wrong in my idea of fate? Was I meant to Be? I feel my purpose, it lightly presses against some part of me each day almost like a tide touching the shore of a beach before it slips into recession. This occurs before I deviate to my average circumstances of life, and it reminds me of its infinite presence as long as I am alive. A reason, perhaps many, for continuing within each of these days. I don't ever claim to know what they are or what they will become as I continue to morph. My life is as fixed as Fate. Reason, Purpose, it all tastes Good. Sweet, even.
leesah-likes at 9:56 p.m.