Overthinking

when I say “everyone’s on their own timeline”, I mean it.

there’s no right age to learn something by. there’s no right age to be settled down, to move out of home, or to start your own family. there’s no right age to start working, if you work at all. there’s no right age to graduate.

life isn’t a series of boxes you need to tick. do things at your own pace. slow down if you need to. it’s okay.

Colette, translated by Antonia White from “Gribiche,” written c. February 1937

Elizabeth Bishop, The Complete Poems 1927-1979; from 'The Moose'

I am good. I am loved.

The days are spent in glory and sun

until rain casts its violent shadow;

a storm to herald a setting moon

and bring life again, glory again --

                                  -- it will be here soon

Sometimes I think about how constellations are an entirely man-made construct and don’t actually exist inherently in nature. The universe just gave us stars, and we saw art and myths and stories in them. The capacity that humans have for seeing purpose in the incidental makes me realize just how lonely we are on this planet, desperately searching for meaning elsewhere in the universe.

I am caught on the wind adrift

bound by a grieving sky

still within a restless storm 

buried beneath its striking fire

ocean vuong | richard siken

   —  Anna Akhmatova, "The Sentence," from The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova, translated by Judith Hemschemeyer

[text ID: Today I have so much to do: / I must kill memory once and for all, / I must turn my soul to stone, / I must learn to live again—]