The Twelve Days of Dash and Lily

by Rachel Cohn

I had a very complicated relationship to sweaters. When you were outside, they were fine, even preferable, keeping away the big chill. But inside? When the temperature suddenly skyrocketed to ninety degrees? Sweagatory – sweaty purgatory.

“It’s the paradox, isn’t it? The people you know the most, the people you love the most – you’re also going to feel the parts of them you don’t know the most.

“I remind myself that I don’t need to know everything, that there will always be essential rooms within us that will be unknown.

Sometimes we don’t want to be found right away. If we step away, it’s because we need to be found on our own terms.”

All these people in your life expecting you to act like an adult, and then getting mad when you take a stab at independence.

The truth doesn’t have to advertise itself. All the truth needs to be is true.”

The only problem with taking something back? It’s still inside there somewhere.

Bear. You’re crossing that fine line from adorable to obnoxious. Said by every adult to every teenager, ever.

I might ignore the people in my life, but I would never disregard my responsibilities to my fur babies.

Missing implies unintentional gone-awayness.

Say what you will about hipsters, but those suspender-wearing beardies really know how to pull an artisanal brew.”

“That’s a risk you have to take. This is one of those moments when you get to decide who you want to be. It’s like an awkward, uncomfortable growth spurt, but one that ultimately moves you in a definitive direction. Are you going to be someone who takes charge of her feelings and her actions, even if the outcome might hurt, or someone who lets herself be unhappy simply because she won’t ask for what she wants?”

“People who want things to be perfect are always impossible to please.

But that doesn’t mean we should stop trying. Even if their expectations

aren’t correct, their ins...

“Ah, but have you ever tried counting thoughts? They are extraordinarily hard to wrangle.”

“The thing to remember – what I really want you to remember – is that it doesn’t matter whether I actually live at the North Pole or whether I’m the one who brings you presents every Christmas Eve. People like Tanner are going to tell you I’m pretend, and then when you get older, people like Tanner are going to tell you other things are pretend. But you know what to say to that? So what. That’s what you tell them. Because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whether the story’s true or not. What matters is the care that’s been put into the story. The love. If something is pretend,

usually means someone has taken the time to build a story for you to live in. And building stories takes a lot of work. And, yes, there will come a time when you’ll see the story isn’t true. But the intentions behind it? Completely true. The love behind it? Also true.”

think that reality has the distinct potential to completely suck, and the way to get around that is to step out of reality from time to time and find something a little more enjoyable

“I think that maybe by pretending, we find out more about who we really are.

“Anything we want. Any way we want our story to go. This is not the time for reality. Reality can return in January, if it has to. But

mood or to whatever I was going through at the time. I could always find peace in books.” “And escape?” “Escape, sure. But it wasn’t so much about getting away, as going to. You can go anywhere in a book. Books are adventure. Knowledge. Possibility. Magic.”

‘The worse people feel the next day, the better the party.’”

there are still moments when you have no idea which of them to do, and feel extra silly because you know there has to be something out there for you to do; your mind just hasn’t found it yet.

Sometimes you make plans. Sometimes plans make themselves.

Why is cell service so bad in the places you need it most, like hospitals, the subway, the movies?

“Because this is only going to get worse,” she said. “So we must buck up, put on a kind face, and get on with it.” “Get on with what?” “Life. In all its bittersweet glory.”

“But I guess a blink is a good thing, right? Because if you didn’t do it, you’d be staring all the time. And your eyes would hurt. So maybe a blink is okay, if you’re saying it metaphysically.”

But the older you get, the more you realize that, yes, there are all these things that link you to the past, and

you’re using the same words and singing the same songs that have always been there for you, but each time, things have shifted, and you have to deal with that shift.

Because maybe you don’t notice it every single day. Maybe it’s only on days like today that you notice it a lot. And I know I’m supposed to be able to deal with ...

“What’s the one thing we want when it comes to the people we love? Time. And what’s the scariest thing about how love goes? Time. The thing we want the most is the thing we fear the most, I guess. Time is going to run out.