Books, Letters & Papers (5/?)

"Beautiful Losers", Leonard Cohen

Your trauma responses once kept you safe. Thank them, then gently let them know their job is done. It's time to grow.

Blue hour

1202

i want to grow out my eyebrows and become the jellyfish woman with a blowfish tongue. i want to be the yellow teethed sun, smiling back at my own anger. i want to use my tears as a blanket and drape them over every heartache i have ever felt until the colors of my pain dilute into a disgusting brown puddle. then i will bathe in it. when i was sad about how slow i was moving through life i found comfort in the late-blooming trees, until i read that they are not really at a disadvantage compared to early-blooming trees. then i got mad. i had a dream of chopping off all my hair and leaving it on your doorstep. i want final proof that loving me never even crossed your mind. i want final proof that i will drive away the wrong people by being as ugly and loud as possible. i want to protect myself from becoming someone's saint.

Studio Ghibli: ‘Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind’ (1984) dir. Hayao Miyazaki

JOHN COLLIER - A nymph in the forest (detail)

take life a little less seriously. learn a skill that isn’t resume-friendly. own your decisions without punishing yourself. both above average and average results are great; it’s good to do something at all. do many things, do many things badly. think about the big picture. the time is passing, regardless

it’s nothing a fundamentally different life couldn’t fix

— February 1, 1922 | Franz Kafka diaries