J O R D A N 2

Tattoos

I'm not going to talk about the tattoo I'm getting extremely soon, because I don't want to jinx it.
However, I feel like my future tattoos are extremely relevant to me, and to my blog.

I've been googling John Green quotes for three hours.
He is an absolutely amazing man, and a brilliant author.
I'm disappointed in myself for not having read all of his books already.

One of his books that I have read is his most famous:
Looking For Alaska.
I know that the main character of a story is supposed to be relatable.
You're supposed to read him and say, "Yes. Yes, I agree. Yes, that is me in character form. This book is about me."
But I relate so, so much to Pudge. From the way he fell so quickly for a girl he couldn't have, to his inner debates of religion and fate, to his general out look on life.
I fell in love with Pudge just as quickly as I fell for Alaska.
And I was just as heartbroken, just as teary-eyed and cracked-souled as he was when she died.

But when Pudge said the following words, I knew that he was not a character.
I knew that Pudge is a real boy-- almost a man-- somewhere in the world.
And that, eventually, I will find him, and we'll live happily ever after.
Because I'm not Alaska Young.
I'm nothing like her.
If people are rain, and she is a hurricane, I'm the mist that rises from the pavement after the rain hits the hot summer asphalt.
I don't have a life library, and I don't drink Strawberry Hills wine.
Alaska is Alaska. And I'm just Jordan. And Pudge is just Pudge.
But I think Pudge and Jordan would go great together.

What Pudge said that made me understand all of this was:
Thomas Edison’s last words were: "It’s very beautiful over there." I don’t know where there is, but I believe it’s somewhere, and I hope it’s beautiful.

I don't have an explanation for why that struck me as hard as it did.
But I know that it did.
Earlier on, Pudge talks about Thomas Edison’s Great Perhaps, and how he-- Pudge-- wants to start searching for it before he's on his deathbed.
"I go in search of the Great Perhaps."
Like Pudge, I want to start searching in this world, rather than in the next.
I'll know it when I find it.
I will look at my Great Perhaps, and it won't be a Perhaps at all.
It will be a Great Change, a Great Difference, and it will change and make a difference on the course of my life, starting at that point.
I'll be better for it.

To return to the entire point of this blog, at some point in my life, I want to tattoo Great Perhaps on my right hip in white ink.
Because although it's not always clearly in sight, the Great Perhaps is always there, waiting for me to find it.

>>
I know we can't, but if we had children, they would bring world peace and end world hunger.

Everything she says impresses me. The words she uses, the thoughts she thinks. The ones she never writes down. I want to eat her soul. (In a loving way.)