Scientists keep the location of the world’s oldest tree a secret because if it was common knowledge, there’s a strong possibility that someone would find it and chop it down.
People are like that; destroying something beautiful just because they can. See trophy hunting, see butterfly collecting. Breaking someone’s heart unnecessarily falls under this category as well; there’s many who collect heartbreaks like stamps, storing past loves in old drawers and too-high-to-reach shelves to gather dust.
This is why we can’t have nice things,
scream the masses.
My nice thing happens to come in the form of some Halloween decorations. Each morning, I pass two plastic rat figurines that someone has placed side-by-side, little rat mouth to little rat mouth. In my mind, they’re in the final hour of a date, finally forgetting their nerves and allowing themselves to fall into an endless embrace. I’ve gotten used to being a passerby in their lives; it brings me so much joy to walk by this little rat date and bask in the comfort of their intimacy.
Maybe this predictable comfort gives reason to the fact that I get disproportionally upset when I see that someone has moved the rats and disrupted their date.
Some days, not all, I come across the rats in unflattering positions. One has been tossed face first onto a pile of rocks, its partner looking lonely and stood-up. Sometimes, I find them facing away from each other, in an obvious lovers quarrel that doesn’t fit their narrative. Once I even found them in an uncompromising position, normally saved for closed doors and late nights. I’m not prudish in any sense; I just believe that these two deserve some privacy.
Everyone has those “the rats have been moved and I’m upset” days. When the small thing that makes you irrationally happy is called into question, becomes tainted in some way. Your bus doesn’t come on time, you run out of milk for your tea, your clothes don’t fit like they did the day before. It’s these small disturbances in the routine that often add up into something catastrophic, bringing to light the actual issues you may have been avoiding by, say, romanticizing the dating life of two Halloween decorations.
And what about it? Let me invest my time in whatever I choose; healthy distractions are hard to come by.
Humans have the incredible ability to connect with anything – my affection for these two lovers is not dulled by the fact that they cost $3 at Dollarama, or by the fact that they’re not real. There’s a certain stability in the known, in the certainty of seeing these two little lovers every morning and afternoon.
There will always be bad days. There will be days when your tea is cold and your bus is late. There will be days when you break your own heart over and over just hoping someone will be there to fix it. There will be days when it feels like it will never stop raining.
So hold on to those small happinesses, those beautiful things that bring you irrational joy.Don’t let someone chop down your tree. Keep moving those rats back into place, keep that eternal embrace strong.
The oldest tree in the world will keep growing;
someone will always make sure the rats are kissing.
Things will be okay.
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