happiness

"It's no fun to be yellow. Maybe I'm not all yellow. I don't know. I never seem to have anything that if I lost it I'd care too much. Maybe that's why I'm partly yellow. It's no excuse, though. It really isn't. What you should be is not yellow at all.”

~ J.D Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye

I'd shed my phase of blacks and greys for a day and wore a bright yellow shirt for a day, eating nothing but bananas and lemons and gazing at the sun and the flowers it bloomed. I decided that this was what happiness felt like and that I should do it more often.

I'd grown a love for plants and I thought my love would help them grow in return. I bought many plants, too many. they all died. If I couldn't take care of a plant for a year, I couldn't nurture my relations and coax them into lasting to eternity. I decided to buy more plants in the future. I stopped for the time being.

I strode out the front door and found myself at the front steps of a library or the corners of a traffic-ridden street as if it was the most boring thing to do. I pretended that last year I didn't have trouble striding out of my bedroom door.

I pierced my ears. wore objectively weird glasses, picked old clothes over new, forgot how to care about their thoughts and remembered how to take care of my own, started talking to new people, sang much too loudly in the car, kept reading, and wrote more. I'd decided to do what made me feel better. I decided to like myself.

(I'd also decided that it was okay to be cheesy sometimes)

And after thinking it over,

all I wanted to do was lean in closer and remind her,

don't worry.

It'll happen to you too.