“As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.”–John Green
1. When you’re on a crowded subway at that too early hour in the morning and your face is submerged in someone else’s armpit and your toes are being crushed by someone else’s feet and all of a sudden, right in front of you, a seat opens up. And as you’re sitting down, eye level at all the briefcase commotion, you feel as though the chaos can salsa around you and it wouldn’t even matter. You’d feel safe. You’d feel detached. You’d feel exceptionally content.
2. Draping clothes that came straight out of the dryer on your overworked and exhausted body. The way something so familiar can make you feel so fresh and so renewed. Can rest so blasé on your curves and hug onto your shoulders and make you feel complete.
3. Getting packages in the mail from back home during summer camp. Pulling your sleeping bag over your head and slicing open a box filled with candy and lanyard and stuffed animals that’ll keep you from going bonkers over bug bites, nasty camp food, and girls around you going through puberty.
4. The first couple of seconds on a rollercoaster as your cart climbs slowly up the lift hill. Leaning back as your pumping heart is making a scene and you’re building up the strength to scream and you’re wondering if you can’t turn around now, if you can’t press the stop button and slide back down, if you could at least stay in this spot for a little while longer.
5. When you really, really, have to pee but the line at the bar is 17 girls deep and your legs are crossed and you’re doing a little jig that reminds you of the unforgettable dance moves the guys used to do at your Bat Mitzvah.
6. Taking a shower after a long day (at the beach, or at work, or from forcing yourself to do something that scares the heebie-jeebies out of you). How the warm water splashes your pores so delicately that you close your eyes and pretend you’re somewhere else.
7. When your airplane arrives at your much anticipated destination and you’re so excited that your legs are starting to bounce impatiently and you’re trying to squeeze between an arm rest and a carry on bag to get off the plane and into the arms of the person waiting for you at the other side of the airport.
8. Though falling in love, sometimes, can feel a bit like acid reflux. Your chest will begin to burn and it’ll suddenly become quite difficult to swallow. And it’ll be the most uncomfortable feeling—while it lasts.
9. But maybe it’s also similar to that feeling when you wake up at 3am and realize you don’t have to get up for work yet. That you still have time to go back to where you left off and try again. Fall gracefully into that dream you’ll try hard to make sure your alarm clock doesn’t allow you to forget.
