It’s grazed knees and your mum’s magic kisses that somehow make the pain go away. It’s turning playgrounds into fortresses, playing tag with friends and wanting to give up when you’ve been it for too long. It’s childish fights and rumours and no I don’t like Jake, boys are gross anyway.
It’s cleaning out your closet, going to throw out the shirt you haven’t worn in a year, and then changing your mind because you might want to wear this one day. Maybe. It’s telling yourself that for three years now, in a row.
It’s the awkward moments. It is mishearing someone and responding with a “yes”, only to realise your answer didn’t make sense. It’s the time you watch a movie with your parents and the sex scene comes on, making things uncomfortable for everyone involved. It’s not correcting someone when they mispronounce your name and maybe you should legally change it because they called you by the wrong name five times now. Maybe.
it is first jobs and laughing out loud at your boss’s joke during briefing. It’s realising you’re the only one laughing and then zoning out five minutes’ worth of important information because, oh god what if everyone now thinks you’re a suck-up? It’s complaining how long the week has been dragging on for, and somebody pointing out it’s only Tuesday afternoon. Whatever.
It is feeling like an idiot when you find that piece of food stuck in your teeth after a full day of socialising, and why did no one tell you that you’ve been showcasing your lunch all day?
It is first dates. And first kisses. It is the touch of your lover, their soft cheeks and the way their body curls perfectly into yours and god please, make them stay yours forever.
It is watching someone you love talk about their passion, it’s the look on their face and the warmth inside your heart. Warmth that feels forever.
It’s your first break up, and wondering what it is that you’d done wrong. It’s not wanting to let go. It is drinking alone on a Saturday night, wishing they had never left and feeling cold.
It’s that heaviness you feel in your heart – or your mind – or your stomach, and you can’t figure out which because you feel it everywhere.
It is that bittersweet taste in the back of your mouth and that gut-wrenching grasp on your stomach when you see them again for the first time, and then the second time, and then again the third time, and does it ever stop? It’s being sure you will never love again, at least not in the same way.
It is all your fails, it’s not being good enough and other lies you tell yourself.
It’s the uncertainty whether to keep fighting or to stop. It’s realising you can’t win – and fighting anyway, like the warrior you are.
It is disappointing endings, but most of all it is
Being human.
By Dasha Kocisova
