The Realm of Possibility * David Levithan
So i read the book in the title while we were driving up to Mackinac island (cuz it's a 4 hour drive from my grandma's)...and i really loved it. I definately recommend that you read it. Anyways, I copied down a bunch of my favorite snippets from it, so I guess that'll give you a preview.
Remember that at any given moment there are a thousand things you can love.
What I learned
The well documented difference
between alond and lonely
the comfort of knowing
I used to define myself by the enthusiasm of kisses
their enthusiasm, not mine
Run outside during a thunderstorm
That downpour, that conquered hesitation
that exhilaration
That's what unlonely is like
This is what my voice sounds like
I don't need to be talking to someone else to hear it
I trust him, but i don't always trust our love or myself.
These things do not matter
except that they matter to us
We have given them meaning
in the same what that we have given each other meaning.
There is certainty in a ring.
The non-ending, the non-beginning.
The ongoing.
The way it holds onto you
not because it's been fastened or stretched or adhered
It holds on
because it fits.
I wasn't thinking of marriage, just commitment
I wasn't thinking of forever, just reveling in now.
We don't know yet how long we're meant to be
there are so many obstacles down the road.
But there is also possibility; the ring marks the realm of possibility.
There are times when we are sharing a pillow
that I feel such joy, bewildering joy.
Moments into minutes
Minutes into hours
Hours into days
Days into years
Years into possibility
This will linger.
To get something, you must give something away.
To hold something, you must give something away.
To love something, you must give something away.
When love comes before sex, there is always the fear that the sex will somehow undo the love...
there could be the fear that sex is creating the love.
Getting what you want is just as difficult as not getting what you want. Because then you have to figure out what to do with it instead of figuring out what to do without it.
When you break someone's heart, you also break your own.
Once time is lit, it will burn
whether or not you're breathing it in.
Even after smoke becomes air
there is the memory of smoke.
I am seeing, as if by the light of a match,
a glimpse of my life
and having it feel right.
he holds me with such caring
looks at me with such open vulnerability
I know he wants me to be the one
who can break him
but doesn't.
We hold each other at the same time
the sun dancing in your hair
And i think, this is what's eternal
Not for us,
But in itself.
You live each day one at a time
You live every day all at once
You live with the possibility of goodbye
You move on
You ponder in this darkness and see you're not alone
You realize you never felt alone
You subtracted one from your life, that's all
He heard me and he listened
and I thought my body would cry
from all it felt
and all it couldn't.
Even though i wasn't sure what he meant
I said
I don't know
Because that had become my answer for everything
He says "I worry about you"
and I tell him "don't."
and he says "that's exactly why"
all i want is you is not entirely true.
I want so much more, and with you
i think i can get it.
I tell him this,
I tell him I love you.
Which says everything
and is entirely true.
You think yo know your possibilities.
Then othe rpoeple come into you rlife
and suddenly there are so many more.
There was a time before i met you, but i can't remember it now
a time before your beauty and i were formally introduced
I'm sure i lived without you, but i dont remember how
can't imagine living without those feelings you've produced
enrapture me with some possibilities...
here's what i know about the realm of possibility-
it is always expanding, it is never what you think it is.
everything around us was once deemed impossible.
From the airplane overhead to the phones in our pockets to the choir girl putting her arm around the metalhead.
As hard as it is for us to see sometimes, we all exist within the realm of possibility.
Most of the limits are of our own world's devising.
And yet, every day we do so many things that were once impossible for us.
When everybody knows you, it is easy to think that nobody will ever really know you.
It has been one year now. The most understandable thing in the world should be how minutes lead to hours, how hours lead to days, how days can make a year. And yet, this neat progression can still be surprising. A year seems too monumental for us to have reached, and at the same time too small to contain all the minutes and hours and days we've had together. We set each month down like a marker beside the road, small anniversaries with the feeling of always moving forward.
I'm not good at relationships
I always manage to find the flaws
sometimes in others...but mostly my own.
I foretell the ending
tehn go and create the cause
save myself
and end up alone.
The first time i kissed someone my heart raced for hours
i didn't know if i'd ever recover
if it was already too late.
I just lay in my room
and reveled in the newfound power
that a motion so small
could have the full force of fate.
Righto, well, I really think i should buy that book so i don't have to write my fave passages down...ha, otherwise the library is gunna be getting a lot of my biznass...
I just got home from vacation, but i'll write about that later, i'm a bit sleepy.
Ciao, all.
Remember that at any given moment there are a thousand things you can love.
What I learned
The well documented difference
between alond and lonely
the comfort of knowing
I used to define myself by the enthusiasm of kisses
their enthusiasm, not mine
Run outside during a thunderstorm
That downpour, that conquered hesitation
that exhilaration
That's what unlonely is like
This is what my voice sounds like
I don't need to be talking to someone else to hear it
I trust him, but i don't always trust our love or myself.
These things do not matter
except that they matter to us
We have given them meaning
in the same what that we have given each other meaning.
There is certainty in a ring.
The non-ending, the non-beginning.
The ongoing.
The way it holds onto you
not because it's been fastened or stretched or adhered
It holds on
because it fits.
I wasn't thinking of marriage, just commitment
I wasn't thinking of forever, just reveling in now.
We don't know yet how long we're meant to be
there are so many obstacles down the road.
But there is also possibility; the ring marks the realm of possibility.
There are times when we are sharing a pillow
that I feel such joy, bewildering joy.
Moments into minutes
Minutes into hours
Hours into days
Days into years
Years into possibility
This will linger.
To get something, you must give something away.
To hold something, you must give something away.
To love something, you must give something away.
When love comes before sex, there is always the fear that the sex will somehow undo the love...
there could be the fear that sex is creating the love.
Getting what you want is just as difficult as not getting what you want. Because then you have to figure out what to do with it instead of figuring out what to do without it.
When you break someone's heart, you also break your own.
Once time is lit, it will burn
whether or not you're breathing it in.
Even after smoke becomes air
there is the memory of smoke.
I am seeing, as if by the light of a match,
a glimpse of my life
and having it feel right.
he holds me with such caring
looks at me with such open vulnerability
I know he wants me to be the one
who can break him
but doesn't.
We hold each other at the same time
the sun dancing in your hair
And i think, this is what's eternal
Not for us,
But in itself.
You live each day one at a time
You live every day all at once
You live with the possibility of goodbye
You move on
You ponder in this darkness and see you're not alone
You realize you never felt alone
You subtracted one from your life, that's all
He heard me and he listened
and I thought my body would cry
from all it felt
and all it couldn't.
Even though i wasn't sure what he meant
I said
I don't know
Because that had become my answer for everything
He says "I worry about you"
and I tell him "don't."
and he says "that's exactly why"
all i want is you is not entirely true.
I want so much more, and with you
i think i can get it.
I tell him this,
I tell him I love you.
Which says everything
and is entirely true.
You think yo know your possibilities.
Then othe rpoeple come into you rlife
and suddenly there are so many more.
There was a time before i met you, but i can't remember it now
a time before your beauty and i were formally introduced
I'm sure i lived without you, but i dont remember how
can't imagine living without those feelings you've produced
enrapture me with some possibilities...
here's what i know about the realm of possibility-
it is always expanding, it is never what you think it is.
everything around us was once deemed impossible.
From the airplane overhead to the phones in our pockets to the choir girl putting her arm around the metalhead.
As hard as it is for us to see sometimes, we all exist within the realm of possibility.
Most of the limits are of our own world's devising.
And yet, every day we do so many things that were once impossible for us.
When everybody knows you, it is easy to think that nobody will ever really know you.
It has been one year now. The most understandable thing in the world should be how minutes lead to hours, how hours lead to days, how days can make a year. And yet, this neat progression can still be surprising. A year seems too monumental for us to have reached, and at the same time too small to contain all the minutes and hours and days we've had together. We set each month down like a marker beside the road, small anniversaries with the feeling of always moving forward.
I'm not good at relationships
I always manage to find the flaws
sometimes in others...but mostly my own.
I foretell the ending
tehn go and create the cause
save myself
and end up alone.
The first time i kissed someone my heart raced for hours
i didn't know if i'd ever recover
if it was already too late.
I just lay in my room
and reveled in the newfound power
that a motion so small
could have the full force of fate.
Righto, well, I really think i should buy that book so i don't have to write my fave passages down...ha, otherwise the library is gunna be getting a lot of my biznass...
I just got home from vacation, but i'll write about that later, i'm a bit sleepy.
Ciao, all.