The Inexplicable Logic of My Life

by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

Maybe I’d always had the wrong idea as to who I really was.

Sometimes I thought she was doing all the thinking, all the feeling, and all the living for both of us.

all her emotional stuff, her ever-changing moods and tones of voice — it made her seem so incredibly alive.

WOMAN OF SUBSTANCE LIVES HERE.

“Maybe we don’t always know what we have inside us.”

“I think there are a lot of things that find a hiding place in our bodies.”

Dad always said that there was nothing wrong with crying and that if people did more of it, well then, the world would be a better place.

Not everyone who walks around on two legs is good and decent. Not everyone who walks on two legs knows how to use their intelligence.

“I had to do something.” “It’s not a good idea to jump into the sewer to catch a rat.” “So we just let people get away with things?”

I was so curious at thirteen. But I didn’t understand much. I took words in and even remembered them, but I don’t think I understood anything.

I had a theory that everyone has a relationship with words — whether they know it or not. It’s just that everybody’s relationship with words is different.

Dad told me once that we have to be very careful with words. “They can hurt people,” he said. “And they can heal people.” If anyone was careful with words, it was my dad.

“Now, that’s work.” She knew a lot about that word. I don’t think I knew anything about work. It wasn’t a word I’d met yet.

Mima says we are what we remember.

I’d known her since kindergarten. She used to cry at the end of the day when I said goodbye. Ever since then, I’d always listened to what Sam thought — even when I should have known better. Sam was emotionally confused and confusing.

I let him be. Sometimes you have to let people have their own space — even when you are in the same room with them.

“I don’t think it really matters if your best friend is a boy or a girl. As long as you have a best friend. And anyway, girls are nicer than boys.”

Living is an art, not a science.

I was thinking that I didn’t really want to grow up. But I didn’t really have a choice.

“Cleanliness — I don’t think that’s a gender thing,”

Mima said we become who we want to be. But that meant we were in control. I liked control.

“I don’t have a road map for this trip, Salvie. But I won’t be leaving you behind, I promise.”

And I wondered how Fito got to be so decent when there wasn’t anybody around teaching him how to be decent.

I just didn’t understand the human heart. Fito’s heart should have been broken. But it wasn’t. And even though there were times when he texted me and told me that life sucked, I knew he didn’t believe it. It’s just that life hurt him sometimes.

The game was called “What If.” We’d be talking or texting, and one of us would say something like What if hummingbirds lost their wings? And the other person would have to think of an answer that began with Then. In fact that was one of the first questions I texted Sam: What if hummingbirds lost their wings? We had twenty-four hours to come back with an answer, and it took her precisely ten hours and seven minutes to text me back: Then it would rain for days and the world would know the rage of the grieving sky.

We’d been so sure of ourselves, but now we were lost.

SAM ONCE SAID, “We are what we like.” My response: “Does that mean you’re a pair of shoes?”

“I told you that there were only two things you needed to learn in life. You needed to learn how to forgive. And you needed to learn how to be happy.”

“He should have become a writer.” “Why didn’t he?” “He said there were too many words in the world already.”

sometimes silences are comfortable and sometimes they aren’t.

I sort of lived in a self-imposed exile for a good many years. I went away to college, lived my own life, chased my dreams, tried to face some demons. I guess I thought I could do all those things on my own. I thought that because I was gay, my family, well, they’d hate me or they wouldn’t understand me or they’d send me away. So I just sent myself away. It was easier for me to pretend that I didn’t belong to a family. I tried to pretend I didn’t belong to anyone.”

“I think it means that it’s not other people who make you feel like you’re alone. You do it to yourself.”

“Smart boy. I lived apart from my family because I didn’t trust them. I didn’t trust that they loved me enough. Shame on me. I’ll never get those years back.”

“I know you sometimes think that people are like books. But our lives don’t have neat logical plots, and we don’t always say beautiful, intelligent things like the characters in a novel. That’s not the way life is.

I guess I just have some regrets. I’m sorry to report that regrets are part of living.”

I was glad I’d heard. It helped me. It was time for me to grow up — even though I had always wanted things to stay the same.

My dad had spent most of his energies protecting me. Maybe there had been a time for that. Now the time for protecting me was coming to an end. But I wasn’t ready to be a man.

just because my love isn’t perfect doesn’t mean i don’t love you.

I knew why people were afraid of the future. Because the future wasn’t going to look like the past.

“All your life I’ve tried to protect you from all the shit in the world, from all the bad things. But I can’t protect you from this. I can’t protect you and I can’t protect Sam. All I have is a shoulder. And that will have to do.

When you were a little boy, I used to carry you. I miss those days sometimes. But those days are over. I can walk beside you, Salvie — but I can’t carry you.

Sam was all or nothing. You don’t love me? Get lost.

Maybe that’s what life was. You zigged and you zagged and zigged and zagged some more.

Talking wasn’t always easy — even for talkers.

“Who says we’re always in control?” “I used to be in control of me.” “Control can be a lie, son.” “No one ever told me that.” And I started to cry.

Sometimes the silences meant that we knew each other so well that we didn’t need words. Sometimes the silences meant that we were mad at each other. And sometimes the silences meant that we didn’t know each other at all.

Some days getting up seemed like a bigger commitment than I was ready for. Get up and show up. That’s what you had to do in life.

I’m like one of those dogs that

jump the fence. They go, like, Ahh, freedom, and then they look around all confused and shit because they don’t have a plan.”

I mean, my motto is usually it’s better to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission.”