Ella Ceron

There are two phases in your life in regards to your parents: the complete and utter bliss that exists before they drop the very first “give me a grandchild” hint, and then everything after. Nothing is ever the same after that moment.

I asked my girlfriends (who, it should be noted, all have vastly different opinions of what constitutes attractiveness in the guys they date) and pretty unsurprisingly, beneath nuanced types and funny fetishes, the core things boil down to be… the same. 

Because, come on. If you don’t squeal over a wobbly puppy, you don’t have a heart.

“It’s embarrassing, because it’s actually kind of a pretty upbeat tune, but because of that ONE FLASH MOB PROPOSAL in Home Depot, “Somebody Loves You” by Betty Who gets me choked up every time.”

And I know, I know, I am not supposed to even indulge these thoughts, these clandestine admissions that I am still, after all these years, unhappy with my body, because after all, my body can do so many wonderful things.

The name they picked is the name they’ll have to coo when they’re deeply in love with their new baby. That is the name they’ll have to say sternly when they’re grounding the kid. That is the name they thought was a good fit for their baby — not yours.

The parts of you that are good and caring and hardworking and special — the things that make you who you are, and endear you to the people who love you — might become influenced by whatever tragedy life throws your way, but they are also so much more than that.

Grey’s Anatomy: So Help Me God If I Ever Have To Go To This Hospital For A Real Emergency, Amen

You write really long, formal emails, but you quickly realize that everyone else writes really casual, 1-2 sentence emails. The day you switch from “yours truly” to “yours” is nothing short of a graduation in and of itself.

Every person you bring over gets the feline death staredown, and though you say that “she’ll warm up to you eventually” and “she’s just wary of new people,” in fact, you take your cat’s icy aversion to this person as a huuuuuge red flag.

Take a few extra minutes to sit down at the coffee shop (with your fancy coffee with all them bells and whistles if you choose) and really savor that cupcake-for-breakfast.

You have to remember that one fix doesn’t make life better. There will always be something else to chase.

Any wedding you attend without at least one death seems like a pretty mundane affair. (But if the invite says open bar, you’re not ruling out the possibility.)

When you’re the one who falls in love easily, you fall in love with all the things that are easy to fall in love with, the things kept at a distance, the things that will not love you back.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You believe in the redemption, in choosing your own path, in underdogs proving their own worth, and all of that. But you also believe in ugly ducklings and beautiful, beautiful swans.

Didn’t just wait for someone to text her back, but kept the window open to see the little ellipses pop up.

A really fun game you often like to play is seeing how much [hummus/cheese/nutella] you can put into your body at any one point in time.

Expectation: You will have your place. Your Cheers. Your McLaren’s. (Central Perk for those afternoon pick-me-ups, I suppose.) Your spot, where the bartender high-fives you on entry, and everyone is super friendly and all the single people are overwhelmingly attractive and eager to be chatted up.