I think the last time I wrote anything to you, about you, I was 19, and I thought your name was S. I didn't know yet how right I was, at least for a while - I can't figure out how to access a version of that post that shows the datestamp (oh, tumblr) but it was clearly in February, and we didn't admit we were in love and start dating until March 5th. But we managed it, somehow. For the first time ever, it worked out. That's probably why I quit posting on this blog around then.
For two years, she was you, and I was so happy. I was posting on main today how I think the best time in my life so far, mental health-wise, was when I was with her. For the time when it was working, anyway, cause of course eventually it stopped working so well, our lives went in different direction, so we went our separate ways. I don't really miss her - there's no need to. We're still friends, though we've continued to diverge and definitely wouldn't work now the way we did then. Still, it was good. I learned so much, grew so much, gained so many of those experiences I spent all that time writing to you lamenting not having had. Having sex. Being loved. Feeling at home and okay in my body, at least for a while.
It's funny reading back my old letters to you - journal entries, basically - and seeing how much I feel like I've come full circle since then. A lot of things have changed. Half the people in those letters are getting misgendered when I read them now, including sort of me. I've spent a lot of time with my therapist talking about how mad I was at that version of myself, for a long time, for not realizing she was queer sooner - if the affection and compassion I feel for my younger self, reading back, is any indication, I think we were successful at moving me past that - so it's interesting to look back and remember it wasn't as much of a snap realization as it feels like in hindsight. It feels so obvious now, and it's honestly kind of funny to read some passages that could be straight (ha) out of an encyclopedia entry on compulsory heterosexuality.
but back then, I had thought I was straight and was slowly but surely figuring out I wasn't, even as I was lonely and longing to be loved but unable to find it or feel it yet. now I'm lonely and longing to be loved and unable to find it or feel it lately, and back at the questioning drawing board a little as I work out gender and whether I might actually like men after all, after years of firmly believing I don't, just in a gay way that it feels completely impossible to practically achieve in the body I live in. but I still love women in a gay way, in the body I have, and maybe that's enough, cause it's not like there's anything I can do to change that. not in the exact way I want. which is how I felt about everyone, when I was 19 and hadn't experienced being loved and desired while fat at all yet! maybe it's all obvious egg behavior from the outside looking in. maybe I'll read this back in another 6 years and say oh honey, how wrong you were. let's manifest that, maybe. I don't know.
there've been a lot of people in between who weren't you. no more sexual experience, frustratingly - that 20 years of pent-up sexual frustration I mentioned in one of those letters is now 25 years, minus, like, maybe 2 weeks' worth of total days (I can't remember how many times S and I had sex, I didn't keep track past that wonderful week in Michigan when I was 21 and got eaten out daily), of sexual frustration, so I look forward to figuring that out with you - but at least thanks to a different S (definitely not you, but very hot) I know there would have been if not for the pandemic. let's not talk about the pandemic. I don't want to talk about the pandemic. I kind of think I won't be able to find you, or the next version of you, anyway, until after it's over, and I also kind of think it will never end, because that's how it feels right now, so here I am again writing to you crying alone in my room instead of doing homework. at least it's a room to myself with a queen-size bed now. if I do find you, we'll have enough space.
there was K (who shared my pre-high school name, if not the formal one). we went on three dates, she was the second person I ever kissed, I was maybe going to go hang out at her apartment one night but she panicked and cancelled and at the time I didn't fully understand what was going on but now I think she assumed hanging out at someone's apartment definitely meant sex and she just wasn't ready for that commitment and you know, that's fine. she was cool. veering a little close to queer twin dating, not to mention the name thing, but she was great. she moved to New York, and as far as I know, didn't experiment with communism - but almost certainly went down on a girl, since she got into a relationship with one within months of moving there. I don't know if they're still together, but I'm happy for her. the timing just wasn't right.
there was C. I can't talk about C right now, or maybe ever. I'm so happy for her that she's so happy with the nice transmasc guy she's living with and their cats. timing is such a motherfucker. alexa play the one that got away by katy perry. I could have said anything, ever, but I didn't, because I was moving away. god I just don't know. they're moving here right as I'm leaving. that's probably for the best. fuck timing. I miss her so much.
there was N. we only made it two dates before we both bailed on each other and blamed it on being too busy, though I'll never know if that really was it. it's fine. never kissed her. she kissed my cheek. didn't really think she was probably you, but she was cool, and maybe if I hadn't been an overwhelmed mess adjusting to law school she could have been.
there was S, the second. I was never going to fall in love with her, we weren't enough alike, not on the same wavelength - I haven't found anyone since the first (well, second) S who felt like we were on the same wavelength at all, and maybe the fallout is now I know that's the problem, and it's what I'm looking for, and I'll know it when I feel it, I just can't find you. the next you. I don't know that I believe in there only being one you anymore, but I want to find the version of you that I'll be willing to put in the work to keep that way, and you'll be willing to love me like that back. point is, S was not you. but we were on the same wavelength when it came to sex for once - I wanted it, I think she wanted it too (she said she did), we just couldn't make it work out. because of the pandemic, which we're not talking about. the 20s and my 20s had better be even more roaring than the last, is all I'm saying. we're all pretty much fucked, no matter what S (the very first, one of those people getting misgendered in the old entries, sorry S, we didn't know then) says; I'm open to being pleasantly surprised, of course, but I feel like I know enough to know the broad outline of what's coming and I just want to get fucked really good by someone other than me before it all gets too fucked up. I don't know if that'll be you. wish it could've been S. we did make out in my car for like 2 hours, so at least there was that, and talked through the logistics of meeting up to spend just one night together, maybe, until we ran into too many roadblocks. again with the timing.
most recently, there was E. I'm still mad at her - she's clearly not you, because I'm old enough and tired enough now not to give someone with that many hardline opinions about mundane things that differ that deeply from mine 2 years of my life, let alone more than a month. I adore cats even though I'm allergic and someone aggressively hating them is a huge red flag to me, and my favorite food revolves around onions, and I don't actually think it's cute to joke that by the fourth date, someone should be willing to change their name for you because it reminds them of their ex. but I'm mad because I did like her, even if we aren't compatible, and I got to know her over that month - we texted almost every day, which is maybe why I let it carry on for a while, cause it was like that with S too; wonderful fun over text, then always rougher around the edges face to face - and then when I said I wasn't interested in dating but would like to be friends, she never replied. ghosted me. she's older than me, even though I guess in dating years she's kind of younger - since she didn't start dating until 22 or 23, as I recall. but for fuck's sake, if you were American you wouldn't be on your parents' health insurance anymore. you could at least have the maturity, the decency to respond to a very polite breakup text, at a stage of the relationship where it's reasonable to break up that way (especially in, again, the pandemic), from someone who goes to grad school on the same campus as you, even if we're thankfully at opposite corners. I hate her and also I keep wanting to text her Twilight memes now that she's finally watched them all and there's nothing I can do about it because she made this choice, not me, and I can take a fucking hint.
I just wish I'd found you by now. maybe picking this up again is me trying to manifest that a little, since the last time I wrote angstily in my online sadness diary here, one autumn, I had found a version of you by spring. but now I think my problem is I feel like I don't understand how. people talk about knowing right away, and I guess maybe I did too, with S, I just didn't know that was what it was yet - I remember thinking, that winter, that it was strange and confusing to have met this person and have bonded so fast but to not know how to fit her into the scheme of my life, because all my real friends were people I'd spent at least a year and mostly many bonding with before we all moved to different places, but here she was. and there you were, for a while. so maybe when I know, I will know. but I don't think I'm going to know any time soon, cause now I'm in a stage of education where most people who aren't fucking unbearable are already happily partnered.
and you know, I'd say I hope I find you again soon, but - there's that bitch timing again, because this time, by summer, the plan is I'm moving away. so I think I just need to be patient, and plan to work harder at finding you where I land. but - *little women saoirse ronan voice* I am so lonely.
I can't really relate to almost any of Katie Gavin's songs, and I think that's healthy for me, in the big picture. but I sure do read back those things I wrote to you when I was - not a kid, but definitely not as much of an adult as I am now - and the one thing I think is,
concept: it’s dark in my room, my head’s on your chest as you sit back against the pillows, we watch a dumb movie or a cute tv show. our legs are tangled under the comforter, i love you
concept: it’s dark in my room, my head’s on your chest as you sit back against the pillows, we watch a dumb movie or a cute tv show. our legs are tangled under the comforter, i love you
You’re twenty-one or twenty-nine and your heart’s been broken somewhere between four and twenty times—fetal-position-on-the-bathroom-floor broken, real-country-music broken—and you don’t know how you can ever be expected to go on like this for fifty more years and change.
Jade Sylvan, “You Know How Sometimes You’re in Your Twenties in America"
(via wordsnquotes)
