yesterday the boxes arrived. i sat on the floor and unpacked them, pulling memories out and picking them apart – deciding which ones i should throw away and which still belong to me. i haven’t spoken about it much. breakups sound big and dramatic but they’re straightforward if you’re really listening. when you don’t try to hold onto something you no longer have the consent to keep. sleeping beside the feeling of abandonment and all the layered emotions and gloomy monologues beneath has never seemed like the healthy place to put energy. someone deciding they don’t want to spend their life with you will never feel good. i like to frame it as if they’ve done me a favor. sometimes you have to take the next step. sometimes things just don’t work out.
that’s why i’ve got love on the brain. i’ve been writing a lot about it this year. i’ve clickity-clacked my little fingers over this keyboard and reached some high word counts over the fickleness of love. white noise between friends, lovers, and self. i guess i don’t know what else to expect after losing love over the last couple of years like a small, steady trickle – it eroded the foundation. there’s so much life i’ve found through the loss of it.
this week, i had the honor and privilege and dream of watching one of my best friends marry the love of her life.
this week, another one of my best friends said yes to loving an incredibly kind and wonderful man for forever.
mind over matter:
i only fall romantically in love with one person at a time, but i am not all people.
if someone wants to be with you, they will be.
if i want to be with you, i’ll let you know.
they didn’t want to be with me, so i helped them let go.
yelling over the loudspeaker:
if you didn’t want to be with me, you should’ve let me go.
yesterday the boxes arrived and today i’m gawking at the wreckage. i waited all day before pulling everything out and i put nothing away. it’s the second time in my life i believed that maybe there really could be “the one” – like the fallacy we’ve all been fed could really come to fruition. the first time i thought i might affix myself to forever, love was loud and violent and merciless. i choked on forever. this last one was subtle. it was quiet. it took convincing. and in the end, it was empty. i developed the film and botched it – overexposed myself. i don’t think i am numb; i just think i’ve proven myself right. but maybe third time’s the charm.
i am a child of divorces
i dyed my hair again
i’ve really done it now
it's easier to focus on everyone else because everyone else is also plagued by or pleased with the unpredictability of love.
i pulled my defenseless paintings out of a beat-up cardboard box with my name and address scrawled across the top in my ex’s handwriting and if i’m going to be in a greta gerwig film where the fuck is timothée chalamet?
you should be you in all your glory and weirdness and passion and fire and quiet and uncertainty and imperfection and the right people will still think you are the most beautiful thing.
i unpack the boxes and wonder why everything has to be so big.
why can’t we say i love you without expectation?
except for the expectation that because i love you, i am here for you.
except for the expectation that because i love you, i will respect you.
except for the expectation that because i love you, i want you to be happy.
except for the expectation that because i love you, i’ll leave if i need to.
we have feelings for each other; it’s okay to just be feelers.
we’ll deal with the rest eventually.
this week i saw one of my best friends marry the love of her life and maybe i do still want to believe in forever. the wildness of it. its reach. even if it’s not a part of my journey – how incredible that i get to witness and believe in magic, and that the people i love are experiencing it.
over the next three hundred and sixty-five days, i’m attending eight weddings.
over the next three hundred and sixty-five days, i hope you find exactly what you are looking for.
over the next three hundred and sixty-five days, i hope love gives all of us another chance.
love doesn’t have to last forever to mean something. love will always be everything.
love doesn’t have to be labeled. it doesn’t have to fit in a box. love can mean a kiss on your forehead or a cup of coffee or a handwritten note.
love from me is always a song or a poem. love for me is always a poem or a playlist. or a cup of coffee. i think i’m still waiting.
and i won’t be embarrassed to keep writing about love because i will keep choosing love every day and
i love you.