From Everything I Know About Love by Dolly Alderton:

“28 Lessons Learned in 28 Years”

Life is a difficult, hard, sad, unreasonable, irrational thing. So little of it makes sense. So much of it is unfair. And a lot of it simply boils down to the unsatisfying formula of good and bad luck.

Life is a wonderful, mesmerizing, magical, fun, silly thing. And humans are astounding. We all know we’re going to die, and yet we still live. We shout and curse and care when the full bin bag breaks, yet with every minute that passes we edge closer to the end. We marvel at a nectarine sunset over the M25 or the smell of a baby’s head or the efficiency of flat-pack furniture, even though we know that everyone we love will cease to exist one day. I don’t know how we do it

You are the sum total of everything that has happened to you up until that last slurp of that cup of tea you just put down. How your parents hugged you, that thing your first boyfriend once said about your thighs - these are all bricks that have been laid from the soles of your feet up. Your eccentricities, foibles, and fuckups are a butterfly effect of things you saw on telly, things teachers said to you, and the way people have looked at you since the first moment you opened your eyes. Being a detective for your past can be incredibly useful and freeing. (This reminds me of “digging up the bones” from Women Who Run with the Wolves")

Let people laugh at you. Let yourself be a tit. Pronounce things wrong. Spill yogurt down the front of your shirt. It is the greatest relief to finally let it happen.

Is This It? This is It.

q1, 2024