Elizabeth Taylor
29 june
You can’t have ice cream for every meal. Sometimes you have to eat the vegetables you don’t like. You can’t always stay up five more minutes—just five more minutes, pleeease. Sometimes you have to go to bed at your bedtime. You can’t always be first in line, you can’t have recess without math class, you can’t have a pet without taking care of it, and you can’t go barefooted every day of your life. You just can’t. Throughout your entire life you’ll hear the sad-stern whisper of your mother’s soft voice telling you you can’t have everything. And she’s right.
But you can have this.
You can have an unblemished summer day. You can find the ideal blend of sunlight and shade and lay down in it. You can discover the perfect balance between play and indolence. You can run until you’re tired, eat until you’re full, nap until you’re fresh, get up and still have half the perfect day in front of you. And the hours will tick by at just the right pace, and when the sun finally sets there’ll be fireflies.
You can’t have everything, but you can have this. You’ll never remember it clearly, but you’ll never entirely forget it. And even though all summer days will be measured against this one day and found wanting, you’ll have learned to be content with any day that comes close.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, greg fallis and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
