Read Between Lines

By: Jory Shelton

When I was a boy I believed in many things. I thought Santa was real, I thought I would always love Power Rangers, and I thought that the hazard button on the car would turn it into a plane.

One thing that I have found most interesting among all of the sort-of silly things I believed as a child was my belief that what people said is what they meant.

I am twenty now, and I still find the whole idea of saying something while implying something else--or meaning another thing entirely--incredibly fascinating. From the simple, "I'll be there soon" when it turns out to be four hours, to the more complex, "I love you".

Life just seems so unnecessarily complex sometimes.

I'm writing this right now because I'm single, bored, and hungry for a good story that really strikes my fancy. I have been living day to day dreaming of a world where I can get a job, do great things, make good money, and have a family to support. As I sit here thinking, like I do most days, about why I don't have these things going for me just yet I ponder; if people were to mean what they say, then I would have all of these things. You know, if that man who stopped me on the street about a job that paid twenty dollars an hour had really meant what he was dishing out, and if that pop-up on my computer actually meant that I won one hundred thousand dollars.... and then there is love. Romantic love, to me, is one of the single hardest subjects to justify. Saying something about a job is one thing, but putting someone's heart and soul on the line for something that no one can be absolutely sure of, now that just seems crazy.

See, the subject of this inquiry, this questioning quest, is maybe to you a simple, "why do we say something that we just flat out are not sure of?" Maybe that's what it is to me too. But here's what I have learned through living, breathing, and wondering.

People say many things, often we just say something to say something. Perhaps if words only came with struggle, as they do for my uncle, we would be more selective and real, as it is with my uncle. But most of us use words too easily and there isn't always a real belief to back up our words. So anytime to you talk to someone just remember that they are (almost always) equally as sure about what they're saying as you are about what you're saying. Everyone is on the same page, some people just don't accept that.

We are all equal in every way and in every word, believe that.