Hello, Sunshine

by Laura Dave

Maybe that was the thing about regret. Once you felt it, you went out on a limb to try and feel anything else.

I think it’s a good thing to know what you want. If you do, you have a chance of getting it. If you don’t, you have a chance of getting only what someone else wants you to have.”

I was still trying to figure out what we all lost in broadcasting our lives for everyone else’s consumption. Before we took the time, you know, to figure out what we wanted our lives to add up to. Something important, it seemed to me. Something like the chance to write the song.

There was a lesson in that, which Z had taught me, about what we should pay attention to instead. About taking a hard look at what we are willing to throw away, about what we should be letting it show us.

We are and we aren’t. We try and we fail. We tell the truth and then we lie. We want to be a part of things so badly that we’ll pretend to be anyone to get into the room. And pretend to be someone else just to stay there. We want to be seen and we want people to guess. We want them to understand. We want to be forgiven. We forgive ourselves. We start again.