when i was sixteen, i was living and working at a resort for two months; kind of like the movie dirty dancing, minus the dirty dancing and the whole pregnancy bit. it was a fantastic summer. it was there that i was starting to grow up a bit more and become more independent; i was making new friends and getting away from the group i was hanging out with in my high school in the city; i was learning how to live life a little bit more on my own terms.
despite the fact that our meals were included with our room at board at the lodge, one of our favourite things to do was to take a cab into the nearby town and go 'grocery' shopping. there was precious else to do during our time off aside from lounging around the fire pit or down by the lake, so every we'd have to get off of the property and cab the 11km back into 'civilization' (which was a town of about 13,000 at the time). our shopping trips were an exercise in unhealthy eating; we'd buy pop tarts, chips, cookies, peanut butter and loaves of bread, pop, and loads of candy from the bulk foods store. any snacks that we could keep in our humid bunk rooms without risking them spoiling, came home with us.
one particular favourite of ours was ju-jubes. we'd lay on our beds trying to keep cool, fans on high-speed (trying not to move lest we break a sweat) and practice tossing the jubes into our mouths in that lazy aloof way that only teenage girls can perfect; bored with the monotony of the world and ever-waiting for their lives to begin.
for the first little while, i'd pick out only the colours that i liked; red, and orange. not yellow, never green, particularly not black. however, one afternoon (and i'm not sure if this was the result of the long morning picking balls from the driving range or the trauma from recurring chicken-a-la-king on my dinner plate), i was feeling rather philosophical whilst playing my ju-jube tossing game. i'd noticed that the red ones, no matter how delicious they once were, no longer elicited the same measure of satisfaction as they once did. nor orange.
after a few minutes of thoughtful chewing, i sat up and looked at the bag of candies. my tastebuds were obviously tired of the orange and red monotony; there was very little variety in there. the only cure for this, i decided, was to re-integrate the black, yellow, green jubes back in with the rest. i took it one step further, even; i envisioned life to be like my bag of ju-jubes. you may not really like the yellow or green ones, and absolutely cannot stand the black jubes, but without them, the reds don't taste as good.
i'm always reminded, now, of that summer, and my ju-jube philosophy. it's ridiculously simple and forrest-gumpy, but it's going to be one of those things that sticks with me for the rest of my life. you may not always like 100% of the ju-jubes that life throws at you... but if you only ever got the colours you like, you'd never truly appreciate them to the fullest. since then, i've never taken a ju-jube for granted.
i hope you all have a red jube kind of day.
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