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It Scares Me. But Then I Get This Big Feeling, Simple But Exalted: He's Like Me, Just With Different Details.

-Melissa Bank

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It Scares Me. But

Melissa Bank

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It Scares Me. But Then I Get This Big Feeling, Simple But Exalted: He's Like Me, Just With Different Details.

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I Tried To Avoid Mimi. Her Presence Seemed To Call Forth Every Rejection I'd Ever Experienced-the Teachers Who'd Looked At Me As Though I Held No Promise, The Boys Who Didn't Like Me Back. Around Her, I Became Fourteen Again.

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During Chemo, You're More Tired Than You've Ever Been. It's Like A Cloud Passing Over The Sun, And Suddenly You're Out. But You Also Find That You're Stronger Than You've Ever Been. You're Clear. Your Mortality Is At Optimal Distance, Not Up So Close That It Obscures Everything Else, But Close Enough To Give You Depth Perception. Previously, It Has Taken You Weeks, Months, Or Years To Discover The Meaning Of An Experience. Now It's Instantaneous.

Whenever People Say They Didn't Like The Main Character Of A Book, They Mean They Didn't Like The Book. The Main Character Has To Be A Friend? I Don't Get That.

It Scares Me. But Then I Get This Big Feeling, Simple But Exalted: He's Like Me, Just With Different Details.

You Can Feel That He Wants To Own You - Not Like An Object But Like A Good Dream He Wants To Keep Having. He Lets You Know That You Already Own Him.

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She Said That Her Father's Death Had Been The Hardest Thing In Her Life. "we Are All Children Until Our Fathers Die.

I Hate Weddings,' She Says. 'they Make Me Feel So Unmarried. Actually, Even Brushing My Teeth Makes Me Feel Unmarried.

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I Realize I Will Never Hear From Dena Again, And I Will Never Call Her. It Gives Me A Chill. It Is A Strange Thing To End A Friendship, Even If You Know It's What You Want. It's Like A Death; All Of A Sudden Your Experience Of A Person Become Finite.

It Scares Me How Fast I Go From Disliking To Loving Him, And I Wonder If It’s This Way For Everyone.

It's Perfectly Natural To Doubt Your Judgment About Doubting Your Judgment.

Perfectly Natural

The Only Relationships I Haven't Wrecked Right Away Were The Ones That Wrecked Me Later.

He Said, "people Wait Their Whole Lives For The Kind Of Happiness We Have.

You Will Say Good-bye For All The Right Reasons. You're Tired Of Living In Wait For His Apocalypse. You Have Your Own Fight On Your Hands, And Though It's No Bigger Or More Noble Than His, It Will Require All Of Your Energy. It's You Who Has To Hold On To Earth. You Have To Tighten Your Grip -- Which Means Letting Go Of Him.

Up Until That Moment, I'd Been At The Earliest Stage Of Love, When You Feel It Will Turn You Into The Better Person You Want To Be. Now, His Gentle Voice And Sage Advice Took Me To A Later Stage: I Felt I Needed To Pretend To Be A Better Person Than I Was So He'd Keep Loving Me. This Was Hard Because It Made Me Hate Him.

With So Much Sky And So Much River, You Couldn't Help Seeing The Big Picture. It Was What You Already Knew, But Crowding Into The Subway Or Rushing To A Movie, You Only Saw It For A Second, And Close Up. Now I Took A Good Long Look. I'd Always Heard You Couldn't See Stars In Manhattan Because Of All The Lights. But Here They All Were. Here Was My Night In Shining Armor.

He Tells Me That The Best Man I Will Ever Find Will Be Attracted To Other Women. I Hear This As Another Fact I Am Too Old Not To Know. More Proof Of How Unprepared I Am To Love Anyone.

Time. There Seems To Be Vast Quantities Of The Stuff Spooling Around Me In All Directions, Everywhere I Look. Days And Hours. Weeks And Minutes. Years. The Hard Part, Ive Discovered, Is Filling It.

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But Then You Hear That He Can't Hear You, You See That He Can't See You. You Are Not Here--and You Haven't Even Died Yet. You See Yourself Through His Eyes, As The Generic Woman, The Skirted Symbol On The Ladies' Room Door.

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You Did The Best You Could," And She Seemed To Believe I Had. I Said, "i've Just Been Going Through The Motions," Using The Expression My Father Had After He'd Watched My First Tennis Lesson. "sweetie," She Said, "that's What A Lot Of Life Is.

Finally, I Asked How You Got A Boy To Like You Back. She Said, 'just Be Yourself,' As Though I Had Any Idea Who That Might Be.

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