Different Names for Different Things

If you know me, you know that I cry a lot. I cry at anything and everything – whether it's blissful crying from feeling a giant dog slobbering on and practically swallowing my hands, or devastated crying from watching that part in Say Anything when Lloyd is hopeless in a phone booth in the rain – I cry. Well, I cried in my New Testament class the other day. I cried while my professor was talking about prayer shawls, but, in a similar but less selfless way (than the Jews who wore them to block out the world and focus on prayer), I hid behind my Macbook Air and cried. It was a silent cry, because I was not looking for the remorse of the recently-engaged-passionately-Pinteresting flower on my left or the this-hymn-is-better-louder Stripling warrior to my right. I cried because I realized that I have been doing something wrong, for a very long time. I have been giving the same names to different things.

In my World Religions class we are learning about Buddhism. The Buddhists say that all suffering comes from desire and craving, and that suffering is inevitable, but it ends as soon as our craving ends. Well, without being conscious of it, I have been craving something for a very long time: names. Now, I'm quite fond of my own name (Elizabeth Caroline Peek, after the benevolent Ms. Bennet herself), and I'm equally fond of the names that get heaped up on me (E, Ellie, Ells, Ells Bells, Smelly, Sister, etc.), but lately I have been unsuccessful at naming things myself. At the risk of sounding too squishy, it must be quickly-noted but noted nonetheless, that I am a deeply feeling person – so there. When I feel a certain way, I feel that way very much and I feel that way for a very long time. So lately I have been feeling a few things, but I have been calling them all two things: "sorry" and "stupid." 

But you know what? There are different names for different things. There is a word for every feeling you are feeling, because the English language will never desert you. Don't be sorry that you're skeptical, because you've "done this before" and it didn't end well last time. You're not stupid for feeling fear or feeling abandoned, because you've felt it before on the bathroom floor with your head in your hands and your matted eyelashes. You don't have to be sorry that you're feeling conflicted or useless, because you know how much is inside of you, and you aren't sure how to show it to someone without them getting frustrated or giving up. You are not stupid when you feel empty, indifferent, doubting, flummoxed, befuddled, unzipped, or out-of-place. Don't apologize when you don't have the words right away – because they will get there, and you are allowed to be glum, wistful, petrified, furious, and hanging-by-a-thread.

So, when I was crying in class the other day, it was a cry reminiscent of the one I do when I see my favorite fireworks in July – the ones that look like a can of golden glitter got tipped over on black table cloth. I was crying because someone gave me a name for what I was feeling that morning, they said "you must have been nervous to tell me that, but I'm so glad you did" and then they said "I get nervous too." Someone told me I was nervous and that they get nervous too, and I cried in my New Testament class, because isn't it nice that our feelings are valid and that those feelings are real and weigh something to everyone? You are not stupid and you do not have to be sorry for feeling. Gautama Buddha said, “you yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” So, give it and then give a proper name to what's happening in you. Just because something's wrong doesn't mean anything's wrong with you.

Chances

your neon cherry cheeks get my lips at every stop

because you look so cool in hot colors

and you get my lips when we watch Lost In Translation

because Sofia Coppola knows lovers

and she knows the soft, hazy talk of love and lights, and

that we have to trust the universe, to take careful care of us

(since it gave us sunsets and Sunday afternoons)

so your ears get my 3 AM theories – white and the black

because 365 days bruise and tear at us

but you say you’ll stay and you don’t take is back

you let me read the whole Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

and I know what a peach that is

Ellie’s top 25 favorite things

1. White tulips

2. In’n’Out

3. Victoria’s Secret pajama sets

4. The Strokes

5. Large dogs

6. Roller coasters

7. Northern California

8. Concerts

9. Empty movie theaters

10. Blue Raspberry ICEEs

11. Sitting on the window sill of a moving car

12. Poetry

13. Pine trees

14. Forehead kisses

15. Jeans that fit flawlessly

16. The basements of bookstores

17. Band T’s

18. Fresh uniball pens (.5 or less)

19. Art museums

20. Indian food

21. 80’s movies

22. Hotel swimming pools at night

23. The Office

24. Letters

25. Going somewhere new

Tenguchoushi

I’m sorry I’m in a few places right now

and paper-thin and see-through

I know you can tell that I’m all drawn out

because I can’t help but hang on, to

two, three, four things at once

but it’s not a secret, darling

so you can hold me up to the furious light

but you’ll find my pattern alarming

still – hold me as long as you like

I’m lonely, just not for you only

The Good Times are Killing Me

I did a bit of spring cleaning this summer, not literal cleaning (my room is like an eternal Kandinsky painting), but a sort of soul-sprucing.  

This time last year I was miserable, and I thought that there was something glamorous about that. I would sit in class and scan the room and the people in the room and think about how silly they were and how stupid their smiles looked. I would ignore the professor and prune my own cynicism. I got very good at being sad. In fact, I'd call myself an expert wallower, and I was quite chuffed about my dark blue performance. Eventually, though, the exciting secret and shimmer of gloom wears off. It becomes a real and heavy thing, for "when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you." 

You are allowed to be sad, and you should be sometimes. You should cry really hard and you should listen to that song 25 times. You should lock the door and you should eat the whole thing. You should act very badly and you will still be loved very much when you're done, you will – but you must be done, soon. 

Sad songs and sad movies and sad poems are often entirely lovely; lots of my favorite things are honestly, irreparably dark. Some of the best creations chew me up and spit me out and when I'm finished hearing or watching or reading them I feel like I've been turned inside out. That feeling is important; that beat-up, thousand-pound, wind-knocked-out feeling is part of being human. That feeling ought to stop and start, though, not stick to you. I know the songs and the movies and the poems are endless, but they all have their own self-contained end, just like every kind of sorrow.

This summer I finally realized that there is nothing clever about being unhappy all the time. Your sadness does not make you superior, it makes you sad. I don't want to be sad anymore. I do not want to be an unsolvable problem. I want to understand and be understood. I do not want to be silent, I want to tell you everything. I want to feel every kind of joy and give every kind of love. 

You've got to let things change you. Be impressed, and stirred, and all shook up. Let happy things affect you, let them affect you more than the sad things. Be soft and brave. Life is too damn sad on its own. Life is too quick and too cruel, to ignore all the amazing parts – and there are amazing parts. There are amazing conversations to remember and amazing hot baths to sink in. There are amazing drives to get woozy during and amazing hands to get sweaty holding. There are amazing beginnings and amazing ends to watch with glittering eyes. There is a whole life to take in; be glad to take it. There are shocking, splendid, fleeting, hilarious, and remarkable things and I intend to face them. You're dying and I'm dying too, and I want the good and the bad; but I want the good to be what kills me.