Like my mother, and a few close friends.
They help me, stand by me, and choose to care enough to listen.
So yes, thank you are the two words I have to offer to those who have held a place in my life.
But for now, I just want to repeat a few snippets from Miss Sugar.
Advice for your twenties:
"Be about ten times more magnanimous than
you believe yourself capable of being. Your life will be a hundred times better
for it. This is good advice for anyone at any age, but particularly for those
in their twenties.
Because in your twenties you’re becoming who
you’re going to be and so you might as well not be an asshole. Also, because
it’s harder to be magnanimous when you’re in your twenties, I think, and so
that’s why I’d like to remind you of it. You’re generally less humble in that
decade than you’ll ever be and this lack of humility is oddly mixed with
insecurity and uncertainty and fear. You will learn a lot from yourself if you
stretch in the direction of goodness, of bigness, of kindness, of forgiveness,
of emotional bravery. Be a warrior for love."
And on letting go sometimes:
"You are not a terrible person for wanting to break up with someone you love. You don’t need a reason to leave. Wanting to leave is enough. Leaving doesn’t mean you’re incapable of real love or that you’ll never love anyone else again. It doesn’t mean you’re morally bankrupt or psychologically demented or a nymphomaniac. It means you wish to change the terms of one particular relationship. That’s all. Be brave enough to break your own heart."
And on growing up:
"The useless days will add up to something. The shitty waitressing jobs. The hours writing in your journal. The long meandering walks. The hours reading poetry and story collections and novels and dead people’s diaries and wondering about sex and God and whether you should shave under your arms or not. These things are your becoming."
I looked up magnanimous after I read this column, and it means to be expansively forgiving and generous. I decided I want to be that way, expanding outward in love and generosity to the world around me. And though it's scary and sometimes a little bit heartbreaking, there is something empowering about being brave enough to not just witness your own becoming, but to shape it.
Read more from the Dear Sugar column at http://therumpus.net/sections/blogs/dear-sugar/
