Nov 6, 2019
There is a strange unspoken murmur lodged in the curve of my neck filled with the things I meant but never said, not even to myself. I tried to write my whole story about someone else, which just caused my bones to weaken, my shoulders to ache. Lately I’ve been waking up with one foot in the world I’ve known and one foot stuck somewhere else, somewhere I don’t know about yet. But I know I have to let go of my firm grip on this reality if I’m ever to get to the next. This is my life. I am twenty years old, I’ve been a daughter, sister, friend and girlfriend all under the guise of someone I cannot recognize anymore. I want more from life now, I want more from myself. I want joy and heartbreak and depth of experience, and most of that is acknowledging the joy and heartbreak I’ve had. It’s acknowledging how full my life is with sunsets and sunrises and joy I've shared. It’s remembering the ripples on the lake in early August and knowing I really experienced that, I was really there. It’s being here, right now and having that be enough.Because it is. Because I have it all at my fingertips now that love guides me, now that the light inside me leads the way. It’s true I would never be where I am today had I not experienced all that pain. It cracked open a deep well in me that I was afraid to venture into, afraid to find my own reflection. I kept holding everything back and it built up in my neck, weaving into unfamiliar tissue, forming a lump in my throat that I just couldn’t get rid of. A plain tumor is all it was, but it’s hard to to think I didn’t create it, when I was the one who kept all that energy. This sickness that I still don’t know a name for picked me up and shook me, violently, for months trying to keep me from running further from myself. My life before this was fast and beautiful, but I was moving too quickly to slow down and step deeper into it. I am now though, or I’m starting to peel away the layers, and I’ve realized that so much about knowing myself is knowing the world around me and finding a place in it, knowing I belong right where I am, knowing no one can take that from me.
Nov 30, 2019
I’m finally trying to shake the dust like Anis told me all along but it’s hard because this road feels longer than they told me it would be and there are still so many things I could be or already am but lack the courage to show. And my days are slow, they start with ridding myself of the bad thoughts you bred in me, just like he did, and he did, and the long line of men before him did. And it’s hard. I don’t think anyone can really know anyone else fully and that’s something I’ve been grappling with. I want to sink into love but it just pushes and pulls and pushes and pulls. So these days I’m trying to be all the things you couldn’t be for me, trying to fill the empty spaces you carved into me without thought. I guess sometimes I mistake love for the scars people have left behind but I’m really trying to shake that shit off. It’s a cold world, but there’s beauty in the silence. There’s beauty in this peace I found all on my own. There’s beauty in this life and this load that I’m carrying. Beauty in the weight of it. So I give too many chances and make the wrong choices and there’s dust on my shoulders. I’m trying to find the best way to leave it behind without forgetting what it gave me.
Dec 1, 2019
This has been the most thought-provoking month of my life, and it’s not even over yet. I didn’t believe them when they told me that thoughts become your reality but they do they really do and as my mind expanded and shifted, my world expanded and shifted with it. Right now I am at the precipice of everything I’ve wanted for so long, only to realize that it’s been about my perception all along.
This month began with a mute crash and death whispering into my ear for many nights. I cried in the airport and on the street and finally understood what trauma is. Finally understood that there are so many forms of it. Finally understood that we’re all infected with this disease; this humanity.
I dove so deep into my humanity that I found the rest of the world in the dark parts, only to find out that the darkness contrasts with the light just enough for us to experience it all. And diving deep kept me floating, which taught me about the paradox of balance.
Lying in the sun on a windy Saturday where the world came up to meet me, and I became you and we became a part of it all. All the lines we ever drew in the sand pointed here, which taught us a lot about the paradox of balance.
I woke up this month and I found life again, found the root of all things. I had been trying to purify myself for so long I forgot that health is actually laughter, actually dancing, actually drinking wine until my feet don’t hurt anymore from staying up all night. I woke up from the longest darkness of my life with a deeper hunger and a looser attachment to this world, this life. I woke up to the feeling of love within myself, no longer searching ruins of the past and combing through mistakes. There are no mistakes. All of my paths led here.
I thought I had made it all up in my head. But I guess I’ve just lived enough lives to know better. The choices we make also make us, closing old doors and turning on new lights along the way. You could say I’ve had more choices than most, but I’d tell you I’m just more tuned in.
Feb 10, 2020
Life has felt more like a waking dream than reality lately, and I’ve finally learned to tune out the noise. My ghosts don’t keep me awake anymore because my head rests easy in this space. If I could create a world inside of a world and crawl into its forever it would be one where everyone in my life right now freezes right here because the stars are shining and I’ve learned what it means to be alive again. I’ve learned to dance with the howling wind and run my hands over the dark parts of myself to apologize for carrying burdens that weren’t mine. I’ve learned to stop apologizing, because sometimes the strongest thing a girl can do is not be sorry. Because the truth is we have no time. We have no time to dance around love acting like it’s not there. There’s enough love for all of us, if we just peer inside the darkness for a while and learn to run our fingers across the obsidian walls of it, to not be afraid. Because fear is what really cripples us in the end. I’ve known dead and dying people more alive than most because they’re not afraid. You can’t be afraid anymore once you’ve stared into the void long enough to realize the void is staring back, begging to be filled. So I’ve filled myself with art and books and music and love for the people around me in hopes that the darkness looks less daunting, and it does. And I want to say thank you to my friends. Thank you so much for helping me crack open my heart to make room for something bigger, something beyond myself.