Two Things

Hear me out: peanut butter and jelly. 

A classic sandwich, if you ask me. I know you didn’t ask, but just in case. 

You’re the peanut butter and I’m the jelly. Compatibility smushed between two slices of bread — excitement!

Okay, calm down, sir.

This isn’t poetry.

It’s just a sandwich. 

A bread-based container filled with two tasty, nostalgia-inspired, home-sick-and-mom-cuts-off-the-crusts kinds of spreads. 

A roof-sticking gob of good that makes your 31-year-old self feel seven again. Or six. 

I ate a lot of peanut butter and jellys in my day. 

Two ingredients.

Is it strongly peanut butter with hints of jelly, or are we jelly avec a lil’ PB?

Trick question. It’s whatever you want it to be. We’re talking about a damn sandwich here. 

Let’s be serious. 

The peanut butter and the jelly must have autonomy. They mustn’t fight for 100% of the bread’s real estate. Otherwise you’re left with a choking hazard (solely peanut butter) or a soggy grape goober. 

No good.

Two things. They exist at the same time and are equally valid.

So many “things” in life are two things. So many moments are filled with contrasting realities. 

Is it peanut butter or is it jelly? I don’t know, but both are here. 

Is it laughter or is it a desperate attempt at normalcy?

Is it a broken heart or a shattered one?

Is it fate or coincidence?

Is it memories or grief?

Is it love or is it fear of abandonment? 

Maybe it’s both. A little bit, anyways. 

The dichotomy of life. 

Never fully formed but somehow always deadly.

Two things can be true at the same time. 

So, next up: macaroni and cheese.