#heregoeseverything

ATTENTION ALL HUMANS: My brain does this thing where it thinks deeply about a thing from multiple angles before giving me a conclusion. This is great for figuring out my beliefs over time or creating interesting things, but not so great when you hand me new information to analyze in the middle of a social interaction.  So here are some things I would have said if I could have frozen time long enough for my brain to get back to me with its analysis:

YOU: When I commented on the weeds in your yard on my way out of your house, I meant it as a compliment. I thought they were awesome, but you apologized for the state of your yard, as if it’s at all important.  I had honestly forgotten that most of society sees weeds as annoyances and eyesores instead of glorious green things that stubbornly exist on their own without any human effort (which is why I love them), but by the time I had sorted through that dissonance in my head, we’d said goodbye.

YOU: I was sitting next to you on an airplane and I saw you tweezing your cheeks, and I couldn’t figure out what you were trying to do.  You explained to me in a somewhat chagrined tone that you have so many little hairs on your face that you don’t even have to aim the tweezers, and I didn’t say anything because I couldn’t figure out why you thought you had to be embarrassed about your normal human peach fuzz that literally everyone has on their normal human faces.  No one can even see the peach fuzz, and who cares if they can?  Revel in your Mediterranean goddess beauty, woman.

YOU: You handed me a block of cheese and asked me to smell it to see if it was bad, and I bluescreened because you don’t smell real cheese to see if it’s bad, you look at it with your eyeballs to see if it’s growing things (and then you cut the growing things off and eat the rest).

YOU: We talked about the different ways you and I handle gore or other horror-genre movie clichés, and the discussion turned into a pretty heated disagreement.  What I didn’t know how to explain to you at the time was that it’s okay that you see it from a mechanical perspective with your technical mind, that you think about how they constructed that scene or that angle or that mask or that imaginary moment.  It is also okay that I see it from a story perspective with my creative mind, and from an emotional perspective with my empathetic mind.  It’s okay that instead of seeing the special effects, I see the terror of the character and feel the echoes of all the real human beings who have experienced real terror.  It’s okay that I see the metaphorical applications behind the monsters to the real life pain and tragedy that real humans deal with.  It’s okay that I see the real human pain of the panic before death or the heart-twisting, universe-rending horror of losing loved ones, even though the monster causing it in this scene isn’t real.  It’s okay that where you see ketchup, I see blood. It’s not something that I ‘need to grow out of.’

YOU: I wasn’t concerned about the tornado sirens because it’s just a test they run every other week or so. Yes, I know I couldn’t tell you exactly when it usually takes place so as to reassure you that this one was just a drill; I knew because the sky was blue and the sun was shining.  Here in the Midwest, that means that there is no tornado close enough that our town would be sending out a warning, therefore it’s just a test.  I’m sorry I couldn’t explain it better to you at the time, it’s just that, having grown up here, that knowledge is in my bones and I needed to dig it up to get it to my conscious brain.  

YOU: I don’t know why this one took me so long, but I do know that it’s my own shame that’s kept me from finally telling you: you did nothing wrong.  I was slow in replying to your letter because it was important to me and I wanted to devote time to it, so I kept putting it off till ‘the right time.’ Then you texted me and I finally replied, but you never replied back and never contacted me again and I worry that you didn’t believe what I said.  I was wrong to wait so long; I should have sat down within days after I got your letter, even if I did need the time to process it.  I didn’t need to process the fact that I love you and you did nothing wrong, and now it’s been so long that I can’t bring myself to tell you, even though you deserve to know that you’re perfect and beautiful and I love you.