Lessons From the Kissing Booth

I'm starting to learn the differences. Between feelings and enthusiasm. Between running and leaving, between heads and hearts, between sunrise and sunset. Sometimes it takes me longer than average, but I almost always get there. I love maps, only I can never seem to find them for the places I really want to be. Maps of eyes instead of maps behind eyes. They're all differences that feel subtle but turn out to need bridges and rope swings and dirt bikes to navigate.

I wake up in the night and listen to the sounds, doors slamming and buses passing and those birds that never go to sleep, plotting in my head how future archaeologists would recreate this scene, these days. Because they are much more important to the future than any artifacts I might leave behind. All of these shoes are great, of course, but they are ultimately not the point.

But you know, even if they tried to recreate it, it wouldn't be quite right. Like those dioramas in the Museum of Natural History that you just know have slightly missed the point. They'd get the duvet and the clock right, but forget the birds. So I scribble maps to these times in my head, x marking the spot, repeating the directions over and over to myself until I know just how to get here again.

It all means more to me than it would to those future archaeologists, anyway.