Shine On

Come on, cheer up, it’s nearly Christmas.

“It was my friend’s birthday, and everyone else was twenty-one except for me. So we went to a bar that wouldn’t check ID. It was called ‘The Clif Tavern,’ and it was a total dive. The cash register was from 1948. The owner was an old, weathered guy named Skip. He seemed very excited to have customers. He told us stories all night long. He talked about meditation, and racing cars, and being a black belt. I remember he was really proud that his brother’s dog had been in a movie with Cameron Diaz. By the time we left, all of us were in love with the place. We started coming back every weekend. And I was hanging around so much that Skip offered me a job as a bartender. He didn’t teach me much. He knew very little about business. He kept all his documents in an empty Budweiser box. But he was the spirit of the place. He gave great hugs. He called everyone his ‘kids.’ And he was a total hippie. Whenever he posted on social media, he’d sign it ‘Peace and Love.’ We worked together for ten years. Skip was with me when I met my husband. He witnessed our first kiss. He became like a father figure to me. And his bar became a huge part of my life as well. Skip used to always say that the bar was ‘killing him,’ and he kept threatening to move to Costa Rica. But he could never stay away for long. There were maybe six days in ten years that he didn’t come to the bar. So when he didn’t show up one evening, everyone knew that something was wrong. The police went to his apartment and found him unresponsive. He’d died of a heart attack. None of us knew what to do. I gave the eulogy at his funeral, and then left to go open the bar. All of us assumed it was the end of everything. But one month after the funeral, I got a call from Skip’s brother. He said he couldn’t sell Skip’s legacy to a stranger, so he offered the bar to me and my husband. Over the past few months we’ve renovated everything. We have a new tap system now. We’ve added a modern register. We’ve made a lot of changes, because we know that it needs to be an actual business if it’s going to survive. But we’ve also covered an entire wall with Skip’s photos and notes. Because we always want the place to feel like Skip.”

(white people please reblog this but if you clown in the tags I will fucking steal your knees. Not your kneecaps, your knees)

“My mother passed away suddenly while I was studying in America. It was such a dark moment for me. She had been the most important person in my life, and I wasn’t even with her when she died. I needed to get home to Zimbabwe for the funeral, but it was right before Christmas so every flight was booked. The only ticket I could afford was a middle seat. It was so cramped. I couldn’t even move my legs. But I happened to notice an empty seat in the exit row behind me. The flight attendant allowed me to change places, and I sat down next to a white girl. I remember thinking: ‘She’s going to hate me for taking up her space.’ But instead she smiled and made a joke. She said: ‘Welcome to exit row paradise.’ There was an immediate connection. Right away we began talking about deep things. I told her about my mother. And she told me that her father had also died suddenly while she was working overseas. We started sharing stories of our parents. And before we landed, she ordered two whiskey drinks in celebration of my mom. I spent two weeks in Zimbabwe. I told all my friends that my mother had put an angel on my flight. My trip home wasn’t much easier. This time I had a long layover in London, so I sat down in the airport bar and ordered a beer. And in she walked. God had put us on the same flight once again. When we pulled out our tickets and looked at our seat numbers, we couldn’t believe it. She was seat 61. I was 60. I hadn’t even been looking to meet someone. I was determined to stay single and focus on my schoolwork. But it was like she had been brought to me. Everyone who meets Hannah tells me how lucky I am. She is so kind, and smart, and accomplished. We dated for almost two years before we got married. When I gave a speech at our reception, I didn’t need notes. Because I knew our story. I told everyone about that girl I met on a plane. And I was looking at her as I spoke, and she was now my wife, and it made me so emotional. It was so hard to know how to feel. I wanted my mom to meet her so bad. But if my mom was still here, I’d never have met her. Somehow I’d found the most important person in my life because I lost the most important person in my life.”

I’ll leave this here.

If your having a bad day, watch this animation <3

Little Women (2019) dir. Greta Gerwig

News Anchor in my area loses it over a Fat Cat that likes to swim.

“me and my dog are the stupidest b*tches around”

— Huseyn Raza

Virginia Woolf, from a diary entry c. November 1931 in “Selected Poems,”

💚🧡💛