It’s The Little Things
The most important lesson I’ve learned from practicing my writing is that the best stories are the ones that always pay attention to the little details, adding them up to major payoffs.
Creating “art” takes a lot of trial and error, adventure, and living life to find things like the proper emotions for your characters and the scenes they’re in. It takes weeks and months and years of practice to create a story that actually earns the plot points that got the writer interested in the first place. It takes countless rewrites to decide on the appropriate setting for the story, to instill a feeling of originality within your reader, to develop organic dialogue that makes the audience feel like they’ve never heard those words before. So much goes into the stories we’ve come to love as creators to put together something that’ll actually fuckin’ last!
And, in retrospect, it’s logical to say that the worst stories are the ones that do the opposite. They lack minor details and are solely dependent upon shock and awe, surprises and jump-scares, contrived moments, and failed attempts at breaking our hearts. The worst stories are all too reliant on superhuman feats of strength and/or will, ex Machina, and on action and explosions that’re so loud, we can’t tell how shitty that piece of “art” is. The worst stories forget what we all truly want when we hope to find something to watch over and over again, something that won’t make us put our wallets away for those 25-dollar shirts that say “Rose Apothecary” and “Shrute Farms” and whatever else. It’s ingenuity that has us binging that TV show again, laughing or crying heartily at something we didn’t notice before. We want something driven by the memorable characters, who are, by default, driven by unique details that make them as real as we are. We want chills over and over again as if we don’t know that moment is coming; as if we don’t remember that that conclusion is on the way. We want a cache of detail that adds up to the masterpiece we hoped for all along. So, without them, we have hollow shells, spread far apart over a run-time that lulls us to sleep, waiting for something genuine to happen.
The same, I’ve come to know, is true about relationships. The ones that never stand the test of time are based on firework shows, concert tickets, grand gestures, and Wow! moments that are few and far in between; they’re too reliant on what they hope will never be scarce, though that’s all it ever will be – scarce. The silver screen romances that are beaten over our heads, the regurgitation of scripted short videos copied all over social media by “influencers” who think no one will notice they’re stealing content are revolting. That’s not love. That’s not real romance. That’s entertainment.
It pains me that so many people believe Hollywood and social media show us anything honest about love, that people are quick to forget that it’s their job to entertain, sell tickets, and get likes and views. It sucks to know that people I care and have cared about live their lives searching for those force-fed toxic traits in the relationships they pursue because the glorified drama they binge is so damn intoxicating compared to their real lives.
Those cinematic moments never happen if our relationships aren’t surrounded by the breadcrumbs of minute details that actually make us run through the rain into our partner’s arms. We don’t get the storybook endings we want if we don’t allow our relationships to grow organically. If we force them or play too loose with them, mess with our partner’s emotions unnecessarily, or bog our relationships down with unrealistic expectations, they will never grow but wither and die like a tree trying to grow in shade. Worthy relationships form unexpectedly within the day-to-day realities we experience no matter what and are made better by having THAT person in our life. Not every relationship will flourish, but Life is the only entity that can pressurize us into the diamonds we ought to be. All the bullshit we pile on top to create the pressure we’re too impatient for will never supply you with the diamond you truly want on your finger.
If you search your heart and mind, I know you’ll agree that the moments in your past relationships that stick and still sting aren’t the exotic vacations gone wrong or expensive gifts that didn’t quite hit or elaborate weekends in the city that ended in an argument. I bet your heartaches the way mine does, over the little shit you did that could’ve and should’ve never happened and led to the end of something you actually cared to preserve. Or maybe it’s the shit you didn’t do that you wish you did and someone is walking this earth wondering if they’re worth anyone’s effort because the one person they thought truly loved them never showed them the things they wanted to see.
So, in that same regard, the details I cherish most in my past relationships aren’t things like a trip around New York City but the ground turkey taco nights shared in a small kitchen by ourselves while our friends went out; like the time I was woken up in the middle of the night by a poke on the shoulder because the lofted bed was too high for her petite-self to climb onto and needed me to lift her, so she raised her arms and pouted defeatedly; like overhearing my ex’s mother whisper “don’t fuck this up” to her daughter because I’m the most “keeper of the ‘keepers’ (she said the latter sarcastically)" my ex has ever brought home.
Our favorite mementos shouldn’t be thoughtful gifts but the morning routine of goodbye hugs that have become superstition because if you don’t get it your entire day is thrown off; not the few and far in between grand gestures but the undying positivity that’s light finds you no matter how deep within your darkness you’ve fallen. It’s the playfulness, not the foreplay. It’s the intense conversation, not the Fuck. It’s the sound of their laughter, not the joke told. It’s the wanting of each other's company, not the excitability of the activity itself. It’s caring about having the photo itself, not using it to make others jealous. It’s not caring about the packed Trader Joe's because, in an aisle full of strangers, your partner is willing to make a fool of themselves just to ease your anxiety and see the smile they’ve always loved.
The best “stories” are the convincing ones that don’t rely on anything unearned and shot out of a cannon. They’re made with minutia, not glitter. They give the audience something to care about first, then hit them with the plot.
This is what I’ve begun to apply to the relationships I’ve had and the relationship I’m in now. I’ve seen that when you’ve chosen the right person for the right reasons, time moves without recognition. Days and weeks, months and years, pass without notice because all the little things that make you two a couple fill your mind and heart and lay you down happily every night. Those little things formed because you let them do so organically and have now molded, naturally, the two of you into an absolute fucking Unit. This train of thought has given me, at the very least, perspective, and at the most, has allowed me to contextualize my failed relationships so that I can make better decisions in the present for my future. I believe my artistic aspirations have afforded me an understanding of why the little things matter.
I hope the same happens for you.
