I wrote this just over a year ago when my boyfriend was facing a health concern with a great deal of uncertainty and a waiting period that would either be irrelevant or a huge impediment to quality of life. There were a lot of things left ambiguous and in my eyes, thrown in to the winds of faith because everyone was confused and helpless in the situation.
It was then my life began to resemble something like a (early, pre- Fault in Our Stars) John Green novel.
Lately life has been a John Green novel;
Just when you think you've come of age and have met all of the most influential people you suddenly find yourself 16 again and scared like you've never known, in love like you've never understood, beaten down and risen up- elated and torn up as if the world is new again and you have to prove yourself as part of it.
This has only been the case briefly, of course. For the most part, even today, everything has been sunny and easy and I am happy- but it feels matured. Relief grounds me instead of knocking me out. I swear some days I can feel his threat and turmoil in my spine- and it stiffens there over time. At first, we all responded with anger and insanity both to be with him and because our sentiments matched. Now, I find myself in a John Green novel because there are sudden moments of my not being able to gather myself together and not knowing who I am except that I am suspended in this selfish disbelief thinking over and over again "how can this happen to me?" and then "how can this happen to us". And yet still I am so irrationally in love that it is "we" who can do this, who can stick it out until fall, who will have good and bad days.
I am invested and existing in this realm between my busy, blessed life and his of uncertainty and what else I could never know. I exist, in moments, in "our" life. It is our life that is briefly written in John Green's fiction. It is natural for me to curse the Gods for having this happen to me, but it is love that has me cursing them that I should not share the sentence, to ease the burden.
It may be a burden to love. John Green takes teens, burdens them, and through easily accessible philosophy shows that we all are- as teens, anyways. I was never burdened without him, even before things got bad. But I also never got to know myself though another person- I never knew how to laugh at myself like I do now. I wasn't burdened before, but amazing things come from you when you care about something. He is one of many people I invest in, and it surprises me I am just now understanding that you never stop learning when you put yourself out there, vulnerable, for others. You will continue to come-of-age. Perhaps this is what John Green always knew.
He bleeds in to my life and as long as he is healthy and happy, it is no burden if there ever really were one. Is it a burden to walk your dog, to pick up a friend after work, to cook for a child, or to care for a lover's wellness?
Love may be a burden, but love is also what justifies burden. In our life it is possible to share all burdens- it is possible to take what is yours and make it ours and somehow, from within all that, have the burden rise in to something that isn't as heavy. Perhaps we are all burdened and perhaps caring irrationally and being scared and loving is what moves us. This is what grows a person. This is what a John Green novels grows.
It was then my life began to resemble something like a (early, pre- Fault in Our Stars) John Green novel.
Lately life has been a John Green novel;
Just when you think you've come of age and have met all of the most influential people you suddenly find yourself 16 again and scared like you've never known, in love like you've never understood, beaten down and risen up- elated and torn up as if the world is new again and you have to prove yourself as part of it.
This has only been the case briefly, of course. For the most part, even today, everything has been sunny and easy and I am happy- but it feels matured. Relief grounds me instead of knocking me out. I swear some days I can feel his threat and turmoil in my spine- and it stiffens there over time. At first, we all responded with anger and insanity both to be with him and because our sentiments matched. Now, I find myself in a John Green novel because there are sudden moments of my not being able to gather myself together and not knowing who I am except that I am suspended in this selfish disbelief thinking over and over again "how can this happen to me?" and then "how can this happen to us". And yet still I am so irrationally in love that it is "we" who can do this, who can stick it out until fall, who will have good and bad days.
I am invested and existing in this realm between my busy, blessed life and his of uncertainty and what else I could never know. I exist, in moments, in "our" life. It is our life that is briefly written in John Green's fiction. It is natural for me to curse the Gods for having this happen to me, but it is love that has me cursing them that I should not share the sentence, to ease the burden.
It may be a burden to love. John Green takes teens, burdens them, and through easily accessible philosophy shows that we all are- as teens, anyways. I was never burdened without him, even before things got bad. But I also never got to know myself though another person- I never knew how to laugh at myself like I do now. I wasn't burdened before, but amazing things come from you when you care about something. He is one of many people I invest in, and it surprises me I am just now understanding that you never stop learning when you put yourself out there, vulnerable, for others. You will continue to come-of-age. Perhaps this is what John Green always knew.
He bleeds in to my life and as long as he is healthy and happy, it is no burden if there ever really were one. Is it a burden to walk your dog, to pick up a friend after work, to cook for a child, or to care for a lover's wellness?
Love may be a burden, but love is also what justifies burden. In our life it is possible to share all burdens- it is possible to take what is yours and make it ours and somehow, from within all that, have the burden rise in to something that isn't as heavy. Perhaps we are all burdened and perhaps caring irrationally and being scared and loving is what moves us. This is what grows a person. This is what a John Green novels grows.
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