Just a Reminder

One day, I found Maria Popova and Brain Pickings on the internet. It was a happy day. Brain Pickings was kind enough to give out free subscriptions to a weekly newsletter sent to my email.

A few days ago, it sent a list of the 10 Best Books of 2012. One of the books on the list was Tiny Beautiful Things. This is a quote from the book author Cheryl Strayed aka Dear Sugar of The Rumpus.

Maria Popova writes:

The book, one of the year's finest reads in psychology and philosophy, is titled after Dear Sugar #64, which remains my own favorite by a long stretch. It's exquisite in its entirety, but this particular bit makes the heart tremble with raw heartness:

Your assumptions about the lives of others are in direct relation to your naïve pomposity. Many people you believe to be rich are not rich. Many people you think have it easy worked hard for what they got. Many people who seem to be gliding right along have suffered and are suffering. Many people who appear to you to be old and stupidly saddled down with kids and cars and houses were once every bit as hip and pompous as you.

When you meet a man in the doorway of a Mexican restaurant who later kisses you while explaining that this kiss doesn't 'mean anything' because, much as he likes you, he is not interested in having a relationship with you or anyone right now, just laugh and kiss him back. Your daughter will have his sense of humor. Your son will have his eyes.

The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs. The hours writing in your journal. The long meandering walks. The hours reading poetry and story collections and novels and dead people's diaries and wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your arms or not. These things are your becoming.

One Christmas at the very beginning of your twenties when your mother gives you a warm coat that she saved for months to buy, don't look at her skeptically after she tells you she thought the coat was perfect for you. Don't hold it up and say it's longer than you like your coats to be and too puffy and possibly even too warm. Your mother will be dead by spring. That coat will be the last gift she gave you. You will regret the small thing you didn't say for the rest of your life. Say thank you.