It's Hard To Be The Coolest Cousin Who Is Mentally Ill, Touch Starved, Annoying And Reads A Lot, Has

Where are the gods in this?

They’re here. They have never left.

Artemis guards the children, those hunting their next meal through the school closings and uncertainty.

Hephaestus protects the immunicompromised and those with disabilities, shielding them as best he can.

Zeus stands with the elderly, easing their loneliness and brightening the rain clouds.

Apollo walks through the halls of hospitals, healing those he can, and Hera blesses the couples self-isolating separately.

Aphrodite comforts those who have lost loved ones, while Hades welcomes the lost with open arms to the underworld.

Athena pushes governments to action, driving whatever change she can, and Poseidon fosters international collaboration, refusing to let the ocean get in the way of human compassion.

Hermes still smiles, finding ways to joke in the midst of fear and bringing good news when it surfaces, and Dionysus calms those who refuse to hear the good, easing their minds and bringing balance to those caught up in panic buying and selfishness.

Hestia works within the home, while Ares works outside of it, offering stamina and fortitude to those overworked, be them retail workers, doctors, or teachers. Hestia eases self-quarantines, soothing the anxiety that staying at home may bring and reminding us all to work together.

And Persephone still walks the earth, bringing springtime with her and showing us that the world keeps turning, and that despite the fear of uncertainty, everything is going to be ok.

I have so much love and respect for women who are honest about their own loneliness but also find the good in it like when audrey hepburn said “I have to be alone very often. I’d be quite happy if I spent from Saturday night until Monday morning alone in my apartment. That’s how I refuel” and when charlotte bronte said “I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself” and when jenny slate said “I think I’ve come to terms with the fact that there will always be a ribbon of loneliness running through who I am. But that’s why I want to do comedy, and why I want to connect with people. You can use that ribbon to be a part of a finer tapestry, or you can choke yourself out with it! Your choice!” and when mary oliver said “whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh & exciting - over & over announcing your place in the family of things”

I’ve been looking out the window for eighteen years. Dreaming about what it would feel like when those lights rise in the sky. What if it’s not everything that I dreamed it would be?

Tangled (2010) dir. Nathan Greno, Byron Howard

In certi momenti, ti mancherà, così tanto che sentirai un buco nello stomaco, profondo come un silenzio incolmabile, in altri tempi, ti riempirai di parole consolatorie, e ti dirai, “è meglio così.

Massimo Bisotti. (via sentimentitrattenuti)

Forse è davvero meglio così

(via unaragazzafelicedavvero)

High School Musical (2006) + letterboxd reviews (insp.)

NOAH CENTINEO ph. by Ryan Pfluger // GQ Magazine (2021)

1926. If Harry Potter Was An Anime.