I wrote this when I was 25, living in a small, old, house on a street with even older trees that turned unrealistically orange in the fall. I wrote it about a boy who doesn't really matter at all in the grand scheme of my life.. But, the sentiments I wanted to share with him resound much more wholely with me trying to reach my own self now.
And I don't know when the disconnect began in me. The hurt. The part that got infected and infected the rest of me.
Is this growing up? Is this accepting adult disappointments?
Or am I just so lost because I lost all of my anchors.
āPeople need to spend time alone, Jess. To figure out who they are. Figure out who you are.ā
So my house is quiet a lot. In a strange way. Light pours in strongly in one area, one room, but then it is so dark in others.Ā I sit still and watch the way it all moves.
And itās just me, mainly.
Thereās my roommate, of course. She has a boyfriend who cooks her dinner every night and sometimes she comes home and tells me about lobster and steak. Iām happy for her. God, I am. It just feels like those sped up videos of people standing in Central Station as people move quickly around them. I smile, I nod, I listen as her bedroom door shuts so soon after the front door opens, and sheās in bed.
Thereās school. I spend 60 hours a week with the same people. The same scientific, driven, type-A, 97 people. And I will for four years. We walk the same halls. We sit in the same seats every day. Itās something of a screen shot into modern art the way we interact on surface levels, but never try and connect. Itās too competitive. Too unsympathetic. Too... Sterile.
Sometimes, when I come back to that shadow/light, quiet, non-sterile home and drop my backpack to the floor, I can feel an extra layer of thick skin peel off with it. Some thick shell that I feel the weight of for the business hours, but it never does anything useful. Like keep me warm.
I donāt know why I wear it every day. I just know one day I went to school and I left it at home. Everyone else was wearing theirs and it was as if I had gone to school in one of those nightmares of being naked and exposed. I guess I had, in a way.Ā Now, I make sure to wear it.
I donāt get a lot of days to myself. Iām not really sure if thatās a gift or not. When I am covered up in school, it usually just feels as if Iām drowning. When Iām free, I can feel my lungs again.. But, Iām suddenly not really sure why I have them. I guess we make each other work. Thereās some purpose in that. In a way.
Last night I came home and I read a book on my patio for a while. I thought maybe the sun would touch me differently if I was outside, you know? Itās something our Moms always talked about when we were little and Iāve carried it with me. Even if now I am old enough to know about 7-Dehydrocholestrol and how easily it converts to Vitamin D.
I got cold. But I stayed there watching the leaves and the wind thinking about the thick skin I left on the floor of my bedroom next to my backpack. Maybe it did try keep me warm, in a way. Maybe I just wasnāt grateful enough for it.
I looked up and my neighbor across the street was out skate boarding again. We have a weird way of trying to pretend we donāt see each other even though our houses are so close. Heās in his mid 30s with two kids and a wife. He doesnāt even look like the kind of person to skate board, but he does it every night for an hour. Just him. No family. No kids. No music in his ears. Always leaving at dusk. Always coming home after its dark. My roommate and I have sat and watched him before through the window. We talked a lot about what that must be like to be him. I have always quietly thought that maybe him and I peel off the same thick skin clothing every day. Except his lays next to a tie, not a backpack. Maybe we make each other uncomfortable because we both sense the same sort of creature in each other. Me, watching shadows. Him, off trying to chase some sort of light.
I ended up closing my book and going inside. The only thing worse than being startled by your own reflection in someone else is watching it as it moves by.
I know you tell me a lot to get out of my own head. I donāt know what that means, really. I can infer what it means for you. But, what would that look like for me? How do I even begin.
Itās not that I suppose I wasnāt willing to try it. This being alone thing. This forced sort of trying to find myself event. Itās just that I donāt think you understand what it is already like. With the pressure Iām under. With the ways I love people and try to support them. I am a structure that is constantly degrading and rebuilding āalways maintaining integrity. A constant, stable, equilibrium. Iāve supported myself for so long. I have to. And I know you know what thatās like.
But if you donāt... Well. How can you say I donāt know my own self when Iāve been putting it back together every day? I know all of these shadow/light, quiet, non-sterile, pieces. Every one.
I know youāre going away. I know some friendships donāt always end with understanding. Closure doesnāt often come from 26 letters, but by the back of a shoulder. And Iāll be right here. Just fine. Knowing in the end it wasnāt me who didnāt know what they wanted. It was you. And I take quite a bit of comfort in that.
I hope you learn someday that the best things in oneās life donāt always begin with a tinder and end with you shutting a door behind somebody in the early mornings. Sometimes it begins with a girl, in a bar, telling you on your first night in town that you would always have a friend when you needed one. And knowing that sometimes it is the gentle weight of one personās concern that can make all the difference in somebodyās life.
Iāll shut the door behind myself on the way out.
