Funny Story

by Emily Henry

You can’t untell someone your secrets. You can’t unsay those delicate truths once you learn you can’t trust the person you handed them to.

“Things go smoother if you don’t let people get a rise out of you,” he says. “If

you give them control over how you feel, they’ll always use it.”

Waiting at the mailbox for birthday cards to show up. Waiting for a phone call on Christmas. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting, for someone who rarely came, feeling worse every time, until finally, I realized that the feelings wouldn’t stop until the waiting did.

You can’t force a person to show up, but you can learn a lesson when they don’t. Trust people’s actions, not their words. Don’t love anyone who isn’t ready to love you back. Let go of the people who don’t hold on to you. Don’t wait on anyone who’s in no rush to get to you.

All those moments throughout the days, weeks, months that don’t get marked on calendars with hand-drawn stars or little stickers. Those are the moments that make a life. Not grand gestures, but mundane details that, over time, accumulate until you have a home, instead of a house.

The same universe that dispassionately takes things away can bring you things you weren’t imaginative enough to dream up.