Words Which Didn't Change My Life - Abraham Lincoln

I’ve mentioned cliche, trite statements and quotes here enough times, to the point where I’m sure some may believe I’m recreating their very definition -  an idea that has lost originality, ingenuity, and impact by long overuse. And yet, they say “repetition is the master of skill.” Perhaps one of these days I’ll retrace my footsteps enough times to walk them with the grace, elegance, and eloquence of Hemingway as a prima ballerina. There is no glory in practice, so perhaps my fingers will plod along on my crum-covered keyboard as I set my sights on plain google docs many a starlit evening. But, without practice, there can be no glory.

The vast majority of things become unremarkable and imperceptible if we see them enough times. There are apparently about 4 million pigeons scurrying around New York City, and yet it’s been months since I’ve paid attention to even one. I spent a solid half-hour picking out an image for my phone’s lock screen. I see it more times than I’d care to admit every day, and yet, point-blank, I can’t tell you what it is. And yet, some things refuse to comply, to be forgotten from oversaturation. Every cup of tea I make brings me peace for a moment. I’ll never cease to be morbidly fascinated by that one professor who always manages to have old shaving cream on his neck. I’ve heard some married couples never lose the butterflies they get when they casually glimpse their mates. And, I’d hope picking out your partner took more than spending half an hour on google images.

Some phrases are like that. No matter how many times we see them printed in various atrocious handwriting fonts on T-shirts, yoga mats, and giant water bottles, they make us think. They’re sticky in some way - we can’t stop clinging to the idea that they’re meant to mean more than the slogan of that overpriced pilates studio. Like that Barbasol- encrusted professor - does he live alone? Unmarried? He’s at least sixty. Widowed? We can’t quite dismiss the thought as meaningless. A ritual commonly recommended to practice mindfulness is meditating on koans - a question, story, or statement that can’t be understood logically. “The best way out is always through,” for instance. They make us slow down and think about thinking. With practice, it brings calm for a moment. Even better than popping a bar of Xanax on a cheap armchair, I promise. Meditate on koans, don’t medicate on POÄNGs, kids.

They say “Growing old is mandatory, but growing up is optional.” I think. Or, is it “Growing up is mandatory, but growing old is optional?” I’m going to be honest - I have no idea. I’m sure a quick google search could give me an answer, but perhaps it would be nice to leave myself one question that I could still try to answer even if my wifi is down. So, I flipped it around in my mind a few times. Once upon a time in the long-gone days of four years ago, Masha learned something about converses of statements. Now, a not-much-wiser Masha’s on a subway train wearing a pair of obscenely dirty Converse. I know what either means - someone else can prop open a logic textbook, and Buzzfeed can tell me my “Shoe Personality.” I’m just going to think.

I’m far from a grown-up, but I’ve certainly grown up. There are few things that I can say with absolute certainty, but I know that when I was around 6 years old, I had a pair of pink sunglasses. I’m pretty sure I canoodled my parents into paying eight dollars or so for them at some gas station, and I think they had a bunny on them. I doubt there are any photos of me wearing them, but I assure you - they looked fabulous. They really complimented my orange skort. And yet, I wouldn’t try to put my snazzy pink specs on today. Glasses that are too small give me a headache. Forever donning rose-coloured glasses makes you look like you have no head on your shoulders. Not all of us are bullied, but all of us are shoved hard enough by life to knock those glasses off. I’m only 18 - I don’t think I have any grey hairs yet. I can walk in heels for days without my joints aching, and my photos aren’t “vintage” unless I filter them. And yet, I’ve had enough happen to me that I know what it’s like to be left with only one’s true friends. To know that time heals most things, unless the people you love most are telling you that you might not have the time left. A recent, not at all uncommon event has made me mature enough to worry about leaving someone or going to bed without telling them that they matter to me - I’ve missed that chance once already. Some day, we all see the strongest person we know cry for the first time. Shove. Shove. Shove. I have no crows feet and my eyesight is still flawless, but at least one pair of my pink bugs bunny spectacles is broken. Growing old might might not be obligatory, at least, not yet. Growing up sure seems to be.

And yet, not a single rainy day has gone by when I haven’t jumped into a puddle full force. There is literally nothing that can stop be from breaking into a grin when the mobile billiard game I’m playing tells me “my opponent only has two balls left.” There are few sights as confusing as a retirement-home aged couple feeling eachother up like a pair of highschoolers on a park bench late in the evening, but, I guess, good for them. The last thing I want is to sit myself down in some cubicle ten years from now, look around an uninspiring office, and realize that becoming an adult is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. Who doesn’t take 5 minutes to jump on beds in hotel rooms? Why mature when one can just learn to act acceptably in public? I know that I have a condition which tends to lead to premature aging and a decreased life expectancy. Dermatologists probably will never “hate me” for having “an ageless appearance with one household ingredient.” Well, maybe they still will, if I install “cloud to butt” on their desktop or ziptie their only pair of scissors together. Growing old may be inevitable, but growing up might be highly overrated.

I’m going to be honest: whatever the initial quote was, I think I saw it on a chalkboard sign in front of a bar. Cliches are at the same time fun to make fun of, and an amazing way to launch an apparel line on Instagram. A love letter filled with quotes from google images might stick, but the quotes are still sticky. Cliches are, by their very nature, “ideas that has lost originality, ingenuity, and impact by long overuse.” But, to lose something, you have to have it at some point. Well, except for that absence note I’ve “lost” every day for a month now. But, they’re ideas, and at some point, they had originality, ingenuity, and impact. We keep coming back to them because they make us think, and they only become lackluster and boring because our literature and thought is poisoned by its own past glory. Like those songs that rocked my world until I broke the repeat button. I’ll give you this. Most quotes online have been said a billion times, and they’ll probably be said a billion more times. They’re probably misattributed and misconstrued in some way - I’m sure Marilyn Monroe and Buddha would be wildly entertained by our Instagrams. And yet, like those rules of logic that my blonde brain doesn’t remember, they were said centuries ago, and still stand, somehow. On legs that have grown old and maybe grown up a little. - Abraham Lincoln.