Things I didn't fully understand until I lost them.
1. Sleep
It's absolutely critical to one's functioning. Yeah, every fruity Health textbook in the nation says so, but you'll never know just how critical until you've been up for at least 48 hours straight.
Without sleep, the human brain is no more suited to cognition than your average pot roast.
2. Time
I stole a copy from the doctor's office, but lost it partway through an article. Now if I want to finish it, I'll have to pay $3.50 for a new copy. Phuck!
3. Virginity
There's nothing mystical about losing one's virginity - it's just a matter of experience. The heavens don't open up and rain fire when you use chopsticks for the first time, do they? And strangers can't tell whether or not you've learned to whistle just by looking at you.
Emphasizing the significance of one's first sexual experience detracts (in my opinion) from the meaning of subsequent encounters. No one I've ever spoken with truly enjoyed their first time, except for the abstract glee of crossing an invisible threshold. Only a very small percentage of them spent it with someone they loved. It's uncomfortable and embaressing. Less of a soul-shaking sexual experience than a cosmetic surgery. I'd like to get my virginity removed, please. Ahhh. Thank you.
Wouldn't it be better to value the fiftieth time a person has had sex? At that point, they would actually know how to have fun, interesting, SEXY sex!
4. Trust
Trust no one, say the paranoid. Trust everyone, I say. You really can! Don't mistake me, I don't mean that you can tell anyone on earth your shameful secrets and expect them to STAY secret; nor do I mean you can place your life in any man's hands. No.
But what you can do is trust them. Trust them to be human. Trust them to fuck up, succumb to greed, prejudice, laziness, be rude, be late, be insensitive, act in favor of their own well being. Trust in savagery, ignorance, panic, and rage. Trust everyone.
5. Motivation
If I finished half of the projects that I started, I'd be a best-selling author, a concert string bassist, and czarina of the underground by now.
6. Pets
No matter how well you treated them, you will always wonder if you could have done more. It's the worst feeling in the world to wake up one morning and realize that your cat is nowhere to be found. Did he run away? Get hit by a car? Lose his path home? Attract the eye of a kidnapper?
The worry hollows you out in places you don't understand. Treading the neighborhoods, calling your kitty's name, you know in your sickened heart that he's never coming home. But you can't help it. You have to try and find him. You have to tender that pale shred of grief-stained hope.
7. Love
He was a bastardly git, anyway.
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