you don’t have thick skin. that’s scar tissue.
there’s a difference between toughness and numbness, a difference between strength and resignation.
I forgive you. you don’t have to worry about hurting me anymore. I pity you, and that isn’t charged with anger. it’s a sadness that doesn’t drown me, it’s a melancholy that doesn’t drain me. it’s observation. it’s understanding, it’s having climbed out of the depths vine by vine, and then looking over the edge. and there you guys are, and I love all of you. and you know the funny thing? when i am with each of you one on one, we climb out together. often, we sit at the very top of that cliff by that dark abyss, and we bask in the sunlight, with understanding, good humor, good conversation. but, for some reason, it is when you all are together that you reach not for vines, but for the leg of the other, it is with each other that somehow you lose your footing and make your home in those depths together.
…
but they’re adults. and so am i. and i am happy and i love my home and my job and my life and my reading and my learning and school and my friends and my cats and my lifestyle and my chance to live the way i always wanted and then i remember how many historical or major figures’ lives started when they were 40 or 50 or however old and then i think that starting at 23 almost 24 is a pretty damn great place to be
THE CLOSET MYSTIC 