I don’t know the science behind this, but that’s no surprise because when do I ever know the science behind anything? I just saw it on Mythbusters, and they immediately took it back, lest they be accountable for a mushroom cloud visible from Sacramento.
Don’t try this at home, and if you do decide to try this at home, you didn’t hear about ANY of it from me.
Teaching becomes an impossible job once you begin questioning your authority to impart what you know. 25 is too old for a lot of things, like being an asshole, but it’s still too young to have your knowledge validated. What’s valid at 25? Being called a “kid”. It’s a weird safety net, an added comfort you’re not entirely sure you want. Again about being 25, no other age completely encompasses being “not entirely sure”. I remember spending most of my life being cocky and arrogant as all fuckery, and then 25 comes rolling in to shatter all previously held notions of being so sure, of having my heart in the right place. At this point, I’ve figured that my heart can be a shitty compass but apparently nothing really matters before 30 anyway. Do I believe that? Does it even matter if I believe that? Refusing to go with it is like questioning the weather or the validity of the environment you grew up in. Age is just a number but 25’s too young, kid.
When I was in 3rd grade, all the way ’til high school, I called my best friend up every single day. And when I wouldn’t call, she’d call. This was despite seeing each other in school. We also wrote each other letters. I think I still have some of them. That’s a solid 10 years of having every means of communication bridged. Once we hit college, we both just fell off the radar despite being a single jeepney ride away from each other. Rather than adjusting to texting or some other means of connecting, we just stopped. Maybe we both sensed the inauthenticity of a readjustment, maybe we just took interest in new things that outshined whatever love we could have nurtured. Maybe it’s too far gone to even question at this point
We still see each other and catch up every 2 years when I visit her in the states for a week at a time, as if we’re the only ones who can fix whatever ends we’ve allowed to unravel over time. But this is about more than just missing her or catching up. We forget we have bodies. We forget we have phones. It’s just not as easy to call any more when the human dimension added just renders the whole thing unnervingly organic.
Alice Sarmiento 