The Rom-Commers

by Katherine Center

You had to maximize joy when it fluttered into your life. You had to honor it. And savor it. And not stomp it to death by reminding everyone of everything you’d lost.

I just wanted to be happy—simply, uncomplicatedly happy—for like one evening. Was that too much to ask?

Real life was allowed to be disappointing. Heck, real life was guaranteed to be disappointing.

I didn’t get to make the rules for reality. But stories had a better option.

Oh, god. I really was my own worst enemy.

“In general, if you have to add the words ‘no offense’ to something you’re saying … it’s probably offensive.”

Nowadays, it was me taking care of everyone else. When I got sick or hurt now, I just managed it on my own. Which I was fully capable of doing. But I’d forgotten what it felt like to be looked after.

Huuuuyyyyyy

“But this screenplay,” I went on, “is a crime against humanity.” Charlie frowned. “Still sure about doing this?” I asked, one last time. “You’ve already put that check in your bra,” Charlie said, gesturing in that direction before abruptly deciding that was a bad idea.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

“It is a romantic comedy that is neither funny nor romantic. It doesn’t do any—any—of the things that a rom-com is supposed to do.”

Burnnnnnn hahahaha

“A rom-com should give you a swoony, hopeful, delicious, rising feeling of anticipation as you look forward to the moment when the two leads, who are clearly mad for each other, finally overcome all their obstacles, both internal and external, and get together.”

“A great rom-com,” I said, “is just like sex. If you’re surprised by the ending, somebody wasn’t doing their job. We all know where it’s headed. The fun is how we get there. Seriously—have you ever had fantastic sex that culminated in an epic orgasm and then said to yourself, God, that was so cliché. It should’ve had a different ending?”

LOL ATE GIRLLLLLL

“Your writing.” Oh, god. He liked my writing. “Really good. I mean, romantic comedies aren’t exactly my favorite genre—” “You’ve made that abundantly clear,” I said. “But it almost made me believe in love. And I don’t believe in anything.”

Awwwwwwwwwwwwww :>

“Name your terms,” Charlie said then. “What?” “Anything. However you want to do it—that’s how we’ll do it.” I let out a long sigh. “Why are you doing this, Charlie?” Charlie squared his shoulders like he was steeling himself to say something true. “Because last night, when I was reading your stuff, I wanted to work with you. And I haven’t wanted anything—anything at all—in a very, very long time.”

Woah woah

“Real life doesn’t come with warnings,” Logan argued, half-assedly. “That’s why fiction,” I said, “is better than real life.”

I fell in love all the time. Just … nobody fell in love with me back.

I had a theory that we gravitate toward the stories we need in life. Whatever we’re longing for—adventure, excitement, emotion, connection—we turn to stories that help us find it. Whatever questions we’re struggling with—sometimes questions so deep, we don’t even really know we’re asking them—we look for answers in stories.

“Crying is good for you,” Logan said. “It’s cleansing. There’s even a crying yoga now.”

And kindness is a form of emotional courage. And I’m not sure if this is common knowledge, but emotional courage is its own reward.

Maybe staying so busy was a lifeline out of my own grief. But I willingly made myself a supporting character in my own story.

When you finally get your chance, you have to take it. But it was one thing to live your dreams in theory—and it was absolutely another thing to clumsily, awkwardly, terrifiedly do it for real.

“Life is tiring. Swimming is just swimming.”

“Believing in things that aren’t real? Making something out of nothing? Connecting dots that don’t need or want to be connected? That’s what all the best writers do.”

And the less I worried, the more I realized how good it felt not to be worried.

Woooow when po

It got me thinking about how nice it was to do an ordinary thing like go to the market with someone and buy food for a meal you were about to eat together. The companionship and pleasant anticipation. The easy camaraderie. The incidental conversations about anything and nothing: songs on the speaker system, or the psychology of wine labels, or the social significance of Twinkies.

“There are no guarantees for anything!” I said. “Would you rather cancel hope altogether than risk the possibility of being disappointed?”

“Your problem,” I said, “is that you can’t say no to everything,” I went on, “and say yes at the same time. You can’t cancel one emotion without canceling them all. You can’t hate love—not without hating every other feeling, too. Stories exist for the emotions they create—and you can’t write them if you can’t feel them.

You can make anything good”—I was almost pleading now—“but you can’t make it good without believing in it. You can’t bring this story to life without coming to life yourself.”

“No six-foot cowboys for you.”

Luh

“I think,” he said, surprisingly lucid for a moment, “that you’re my favorite person I’ve ever met.”

You don’t get everything you want! You get a few tiny, broken pieces of what you thought you wanted and you tell yourself over and over it’s more than enough!”

🥺🥺🥺

“I decided that if I just held on, things would get better. I wasn’t sure how much better, but better. And when you’ve seen worse, better is good enough.”

“I just got up every day, and went to bed every night, and tried to be a good person in between.”

🙏🏼

“Whatever story you tell yourself about your life, that’s the one that’ll be true.”

“Here’s another thing I accidentally figured out: happiness is always better with a little bit of sadness.”

TT_TT

If you wait for other people to light you up, then I guess you’re at the mercy of darkness.

Humanity at its worst is an easy story to tell—but it’s not the only story. Because the more we can imagine our better selves, the more we can become them.”

Charlie was here right now. And I was here, too. And that was enough for now.

Tragedy is a given. There is no version of human life that doesn’t involve reams of it. The question is what we do in the face of it all.

“I just want to belong to you,” he’d say. “And I want you to belong to me.”

“Choose a good, imperfect person who leaves the cap off the toothpaste, and puts the toilet paper roll on upside down, and loads the dishwasher like a ferret on steroids—and then appreciate the hell out of that person. Train yourself to see their best, most delightful, most charming qualities. Focus on everything they’re getting right. Be grateful—all the time—and laugh the rest off.”

🩷🩷🩷

“There it is. The whole trick to life. Be aggressively, loudly, unapologetically grateful.”

Tragedy really is a given. There are endless human stories, but they all end the same way. So it can’t be where you’re going that matters. It has to be how you get there.

It’s all about the details you notice. And the joys you savor. And the hope you refuse to give up on. It’s all about writing the very best story of your life. Not just how you live it—but how you choose to tell it.