Here's the thing

Coffee lover Shower singer Gmail dependent Berkeley graduate Twenty four years old (Previously: A Day in a Life in a Photo)

[daniellepma]

"Love, ultimately, is a practice. A practice of acceptance, being present, forgiveness, and stretching your heart into vulnerable territories."

[daniellepma]

2016

It’s the third day of January, and I can’t quite believe it. How did time pass so quickly? In some ways, I feel older and wiser, but in a lot of ways, I feel like the questions & curiosity just build higher and higher as we climb up in age. I feel like things are moving full speed ahead, quickly and in a rush of cold air that straddles the line of refreshing & painful. Too slow for our healthy ambitions & lofty dreams but too fast to properly look back. In a blur, we’ve arrived in 2016, with bright eyes and slightly out of breath.

[daniellepma]

Writing About Them

“I used to write about finding love. Now I wanna write about what happens after you’ve found it.”

-Carrie Bradshaw

I’ve always been a little bit boy crazy. I’ve dated a lot, and I’ve written about it. The two seemed so intricately connected - after all, my heart ran both pieces of my life.

I process my most terrifying, most wonderful, most confusing thoughts & feelings through writing. It’s become the lens through which I see the world, the filter though which I sift out the noise and get to the essence of my experiences. For a long while, the majority of my non-working, non-friend time was occupied by two things: 1) Boys and 2) Writing About Them.

When I entered into a happy, stable, committed relationship (hey they do exist!), I was a little bit worried about how I would now spend that free time. Without the thousands of first/second/third date get-to-know-you questions, without the agonizing hours analyzing character & chemistry, without the inevitable breakups & breakdowns, I had certainly gained a sizable chunk of time back. And furthermore, without all that material, what would I write about?

The answer is amazingly & embarrassingly simple. The majority of my non-working, non-friend time is now occupied by two things: 1) Books and 2) Writing About Them. I don’t mean that I’m a book reviewer (I would actually be very bad at that). I just mean that I still write about my raw thoughts & feelings. I often still write about love. But I’ve expanded my source of inspiration from men in New York City to people all over the world - mostly women, in fact, that I respect & admire. And it’s not always books. It’s also podcasts and Ted talks and articles.

Finding someone whose companionship gives me independence, whose commitment gives me freedom - it’s incredible, and it’s rare. People often say that we should be with someone who makes us better. I don’t think that’s quite right. I think we should be with someone who makes us want to make ourselves better. Someone who inspires our most wonderful selves but still loves our least wonderful selves.

You may have noticed that I haven’t really written about my guy yet. A few moments & glimpses, but nothing full-featured. It doesn’t mean he isn’t a muse for me. It just means that I get to pick my subjects.

[daniellepma]

first fights

I was a ball of sensitive & your body had had a rough week. We lay in your bed almost fighting but somehow, neither one of us could figure out what about. The tenseness & lateness wore at us when you said, "I'm going to sleep." It felt like a punch to my stomach. I wanted to cry and run off, taking all the uneasiness and anxiety and throwing it in the trash on my way out. Not that it was ever that simple. Instead, I asked, "Are you serious?" "Yes. Let's get some sleep and clear our heads." I swallowed hard and forced a breath, "I don't want to go to sleep with you mad at me." "I'm not mad. Trust me, I don't get mad about this stuff. Come here." You opened your arms for me, and I crawled into them, burying my head in your chest as you held me close. In the darkness, I silently marveled at what just happened, and I stretched my lips up to kiss yours. You kissed me back and closed your eyes. I nuzzled into you, breathed in your smell, and let the waves of oxytocin carry us into a sweet sleep. A sleep we woke from in the morning, all tenseness dissipated - just light & laughter & love making.

[daniellepma]

Over the phone

today, we both held each other close. Two best friends with too many guys with too many pros & cons to make lists out of. We cradled each other's achy hearts and laughed because there was nothing else to do. We laughed and acknowledged in unison that in a month, we would probably be alone again. Because what are the odds someone won't fuck up here? That this would be it, something meaningful? When it rains, it pours - like the storm before the calm.

[daniellepma]

Subway Dance

As much as I'd love to continue eye fucking you, this is my stop. Beautiful, dressed-in-all-black, tattooed & sexy man.

[daniellepma]

Smoke Screen

As we walked along the perfectly pretty, serene streets of Hoboken, I let myself be surprised by you. Surprised that we had so much to talk about. Surprised that I had misjudged you. Surprised at the unmistakable intimacy we had stumbled into.

You reached into your back pocket and pulled out a cigarette that you knew I hated. You had said to me on our first date that you would quit when something (someone) was worth quitting for. I instinctively tried to grab it from you so I could stop you from smoking. You resisted, so I backed off.

“It’s the only one I brought out.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t be mad.”

“I’m not mad.”

My step had fallen away from yours as I put palpable distance between us, between my potential to care about you and your potential to kill yourself with chemicals.

Your hazel eyes looked over at me before flicking the unlit cigarette onto the ground behind you.

I smiled and closed the distance between us. I kissed you.

“Now someone’s happy.”

I was.

[daniellepma]

Baby, you have no idea how much I’d love to love you.

[purplebuddhaproject]

You will manage to keep a woman in love with you, only for as long as you can keep her in love with the person she becomes when she is with you.

 C. JoyBell C. (via purplebuddhaproject)

[killurparents]

You can’t keep dancing with the devil and ask why you’re still in hell

Something my friend told me the other day (via sad-theater)

[shallow-feelings]

Find someone that makes you laugh as hard as they make you cum.

Unknown (via terrible)

[daniellepma]

I’m at the store buying pretty, lacy underthings & all I want to do is text you things. But I won’t because I’m not about to go down that path, to start shit. But I also know that you know who you are and that now, you may or may not be picturing it, me, us in all our lost moments of passion & tawdry & adoration.

[daniellepma]

Linger

One day, I will love someone more than you, but I will never not care about you.

[daniellepma]

Soulmates

Noun People who make your heart feel free and safe at the same time. People whose presence complete the silence. People who can perfectly share a cheese plate.

[wnq-writers]

he is a labyrinth, a maze worth being lost in.

noirbl00d  (via wnq-writers)

[fyp-psychology]

People are just as wonderful as sunsets if you let them be. When I look at a sunset, I don’t find myself saying, ‘Soften the orange a bit on the right hand corner.’ I don’t try to control a sunset. I watch with awe as it unfolds.

Carl Rogers  (via kvtes)

[daniellepma]

On boyfriend bonfires, etc.

I feel like there are these people who do boyfriend bonfires or things of the like. They purge their lives of gifts and tokens and knick-knacks and leftover shreds from a ripped up relationship. I don't really get it. I don't get that separation and how you can feel like you could even begin to untangle something so intertwined like two people, two lives. I wake up on the mattress we shared with sleepy eyes and touching hands. I get out of bed and turn on the light you made me buy - the black and cream one with birds when I was leaning towards the blue and white geometric pattern. Two books fall off my shelf and onto my bed because I put those shelves up myself and have been meaning to buy bookends forever. I pick them up, holding my 23rd birthday present from you, a nerdy and scientific book that I love, filled with words about sex and evolution. I put them back and head towards the shower. I hang my towel on the silver rack, over the little dent that we made when we got a little crazy in the bathroom. I smile because I can't help it but cover the imperfection anyways. I start to get dressed, putting on the skirt I wore to meet you at that Broadway show. I realize I need shoes from the storage space above my closet. I walk to my living room to grab the ladder you carried home for me, blocks and blocks in the sticky New York air. Finally ready, I grab my things for work. My day has only just begun, but your presence is undeniable. Un-untanglable. Woven into the fabric of each moment, like an ancient and omnipresent dust that has set and settled into my life.