Relationships are complicated at any age. It doesn’t matter what it is – a friendship, family, romantic relationships – they are all complicated.
And I feel like we all have to take a moment to breathe, because sometimes we don’t stop to hear what we can do in the silence. Because it’s in the silence that we can hear the true moments, the things our heart is thinking over the anger and pain, and the love that we have to give.
Dash and Lily are both in a world where everything is so loud around them, that it feels like nothing can happen for them. And hey, the world may get loud but it’s people that remind us of the way that the world is special and our lives are special that can make us stop and breathe.
And that is a beautiful thing.
MOCHI AND MUPPETS
Dax’s ex, Sofia, is back in town and she texted him to see him. I don’t care who you are, when an ex texts you, it’s like you feel everything that you didn’t know that you could feel.
And the pain gets to you – if you respond or you don’t – it gets to you.
Lily has sent Dash on the latest dare – to go to a mochi making class. Now, I love mochi, but I wouldn’t want to have to make it. It seems so difficult, but aren’t all the best things difficult? Well, except spaghetti, cause that’s easy and it’s my favorite thing in the world.
Dash wants someone to make sense of all his feelings and Lily knows that where she’s sent him, he has to learn to live with his thoughts and his feelings. She says that the best place for him may be in a kitchen full of Japanese grannies who don’t understand him.
Meanwhile Dash has sent Lily to an art pop up. She’s excited – crafting is something that she loves to do. She’s feeling kind of cocky – as if nothing can get to her, because he didn’t give her a challenge. The dares are supposed to be challenging.
His is – he’s having a hard time making Mochi. The book says that Mochi you have to be 100% focused and he says he is – but he isn’t. He keeps getting texts from Sofia. He admits he’s not 100% focused. He’s distracted, because his heart is in a million places.
But he wants to hear what Lily is telling him to do. Dash’s mochi is so bad that the granny throws it away. I had to laugh, cause he was somewhat proud of it and felt slapped in the face when that shit went in the garbage.
Lily is so prolific and she says to him when everything is quiet, you can hear the best answers to your issues. Wisdom is so real. She tells him to listen to his mochi. He looks like karate kid focusing, but makes a good mochi and I can’t stop smiling for him when he sets it down. Grannies clap for him making a good one.
At the art pop up Lily makes a muppet. She loves it. She says challenge was fun and just when you think that the dare is over, it isn’t over yet. Now as part of the pop up they have to destroy their art.
The Break Room – where you go to break shit to feel better. The name of the place makes sense.
I GET IT – I’M WEIRD
“When it rains she always looks for the rainbow, but sometimes a rainbow doesn’t show. So what do you do? You stand in the rain and scream.”
Dash has wisdom too.
Lily looks like ppl are crazy destroying things. Dash tells her to let it out. Beat the crap out of something. And ya, breaking shit does make you feel better, but it’s also scary. Because what if you don’t feel better? What if it makes you feel worse? What if it opens a door that you didn’t know is closed. I don’t blame Lily for not doing it.
Dash comes by later to pick up notebook and the guy who had led the art class asks if it’s time for his regular session. It says a lot that Dash is regular. Kid Dash says he’s relaxed.
Art teacher compliments Lily and says that she made the first muppet they’ve ever had. Dash asks where corpse is.
And that’s when we hear Lily’s voice, she couldn’t destroy. she likes looking for rainbows.
In typical Lily fashion, she’s gone to a dog park, because they make her happy. But when she goes to leave she runs into Edgar.
Now, I don’t like Edgar. I don’t like the fact that he’s stalking Lily. I don’t like his attitude and the way that he talks to Lily. Seeing him, her heart starts beating fast. She asks if he’s stalking her. He admits that he looked her up on Instagram and figured out where she goes and goes there everyday looking for her. Literal definition of stalking.
He says its weird she doesn’t have a dog. Keeps calling her weird. Dude needs to learn to read the room. The look on her face says it all.
She wants to know if he came there to tell her she’s weird – she gets it. She understand what he thinks. He says weird is a compliment – her dancing was awesome. He says he was jealous of her and the way she can always let go. He calls her cute. She asks if he remembers the last time he talked to her. He asks if she does. She lies and says that she doesn’t.
And I feel bad for Lily. Why? Because once again this girl thinks that she has to bend to everyone else and forgets that her feelings are absolutely important. She needs to realize that her feelings are valid. Lily has spent too much of her life existing, because living was too much.
Edgar invites her to slam poetry night. He tells her she’s the real deal that he is trying to put on his free thinking hat, like she does. He has on the friendship bracelet that she made when she was a kid. She’s confused.
DADDY DEAREST
Dash has wanted to give himself the gift of solitude and that means that he’s at his Dad’s while his Dad is gone. And he thought that his Dad was going to be gone the entire time of Christmas break.
I feel for Dash because you can see that the way his family acts really fucks him up. And he quickly learns that solitude doesn’t last long, because in walks his Dad and his girlfriend.
Dash’s Dad is absentee, but he seems like the type of Dad that thinks that writing a check means that he knows his kid and that he’s not a father that truly is a sperm donor. Dash doesn’t want that – he wants a father that knows him, that doesn’t judge him, and is there for him.
Him and his Dad start to talk, but the distance between them is evident. His Dad starts to talk to him and doesn’t seem to care he wasn’t communicating with his son and he’s really not even communicating. He’s talking to his son like they are strangers, but they truly are. He tells his son he thought he was going to be with his Mom, Dash says he needed a break and Dad says he gets it cause mom is a pill. Dash’s look on his face is like hurt.
No kid needs to hear the bad about their parent. They need to feel like their parents are places that they can go to and be safe in. But for Dash, he has no safe place. His Dads interest is in the women in his life, not his son.
Dash writes to Lily and tells her about how he has to go to dinner and doesn’t want to because it ends in a fight every year. His Dad tries to act like great Dad and he’s not and Dash tells him that every year. He starts to tell her about Sofia and then gets scared and rips it out. He doesn’t want to tell her that just yet. And then starts another entry telling her that he likes her and wants to meet her and tears it out and says definitely not. Dash is torn – because what is the line of too much information.
INTENTIONAL PAIN
Lily is there for her brother more than anyone. He’s her life is her family. So when she hears loud talking and goes to see what is happening, she catches Benny rushing out. Benny and Langston have broken up, because they would be long distance and Langston Her says he’s not doing long distance ever again. Lily says she gets it cause of notebook boy, but that just isn’t the best idea. Langston says it’s not the same, she could mail notebook from Fiji.
What? Why would she mail the notebook from Fiji? Lily is on the same page as me, confused and keeps asking Langston why she would mail notebook from Fiji.
The thing is when you find out that the world is lying to you, everything becomes painful. He screams at her and tells her that he parents – they aren’t on second honeymoon, they are in Fiji because their Dad is up for a job there and they went to see if he got it. Langston tells her they didn’t tell her cause they knew she would freak out.
He wants to hurt her because he’s hurting. It’s a shitty thing when you want to bring others down, because you are hurting. Though it is the worst thing, we’ve all done it. It’s not something to be proud of and it’s something that you need to make up for.
Langston is going to have a lot to be making up for.
Dash’s pain is different than Lily’s. He’s at the dinner that he was strong armed into going to. He’s ready to be combative, because that’s the relationship that he has with his father.
Sofia shows up and walks over. In Dash’s life, she’s always been this calming peacemaker. Dash invited her to dinner to be a safe space. His Dad is dismissive to him and he thinks that Sofia making time for his son is a thing. But Sofia – she’s just happy to see Dash.
When Sofia brings up the fact that she’s been traveling, Dash’s Dad says he’s always wanted to travel with Dash, and asks why he never wanted to travel. Dash thinks about how its cause Dad never invited him. It’s hard to have that moment where you want to tell someone off, but you can’t.
Dash starts to think and quiets his mind. He can hear Lily telling him to quiet his mind and you can find the answers.
I have to admit, I teared up.
Dash tells his Dad how he was thinking of how he used to take him to a bookstore off 81st and how he loved going there with him and how it’s where he first fell in love with books. Dad seems kind of shocked – but I think he was more surprised there wasn’t an argument like they always have. And then they start talking bookstores.
LET IT ALL GO
Where do you go and where do you turn when your outlet is gone. Lily is hurt, confused, and upset. She calls pizza place looking for Boomer. She’s looking for notebook. She’s upset and needs a place to write her feelings.
The book has become such a part of who she is that she can’t let that go. She needs to talk to Dash and it’s in that moment where you realize her feelings for him are just as deep as his for her.
But this means she needs to find a different outlet. For her that means seeing some snowmen and beats the shit out of them. She’s screaming and letting it all out. Destroys them – like these things were beaten apart. Lily had some aggression.
But it wasn’t enough. She heads to the place where slam poetry is and marches right up to the stage and takes the microphone.
She says she’s on a role and asks to see if Edgar is there. He doesn’t answer, so for her it is just another thing. Another let down. Of course he didn’t show up. She says she beat the crap out of something and it felt amazing. It’s ok to say that things suck.
Lily isn’t used to being this open. She is not used to it, but she is fucking livid. She admits that she is not happy and positive – she feels small and like an outsider. Lily is relatable.
And that is when she sees Edgar. She calls him her a middle school bully and his face goes white and pale. She tells him that the time that at the dance in middle school – it stopped her from living. And the worst part is – that he doesn’t remember.
She says she is mad. She’s mad at everyone. She tells Edgar he doesn’t get to have the power over her anymore. She wishes she would have told him a long time ago so that she could have a normal life. She says she was 12 and he stands up and says he was sorry. He wants to make it up to her. He invites her to a Christmas Eve party in front of everyone. And she says ok. Crowd cheers.
Confronting your past and moving to the future is a hard thing. It’s a moment where you feel a little vulnerable, but a moment where the walls come up and that’s okay. It’s safe.
And safe is something we all need right now.
WAIT WHAT?
Dash is leaving dinner and his Dad is a little cold. He’s like loving his kid, but also ready to get on with his life and the current girlfriend. He will see Dash after the new year.
Sofia is surprised the way that Dash acted – so calm and not combative with his Dad. She said that he didn’t need her. Sofia is glad that she got to see Dash, because she want to tell him him that she’s moving back to NY and wanted to make sure they were ok.
How do you become okay with the person that broke your heart?
The wait what part? Well, Dash and Sofia meet up with their friends, and OMG his friend is Edgar. I about died. Dash and Lily’s lives are intertwined and I about died. I mean I shouldn’t be shocked, but I was.
This is like six degrees of seperation.
Edgar tells him he’s going to Priya’s party and is bringing a girl. Sophia invites him to go as friends. He says he’ll go. Why not.
OMG are Dash and Lily finally gonna meet?