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thirty

late because, well, it's been a lot going on. a lot has happened this year in ways we didn't really anticipate, want, or imagine. we fell in love and had our hearts broken twice, maybe three times if we were to be more technical about aches; traveled so, so much this year between vegas, new mexico, boise, the bay, and of course, thailand; and have fallen in love once again.

life has been relentless, and i don't think it ever really gets easier as we near the last quarter of our graduate program and into another year of transition. this was the year we let ourself... just exist and thrive. we let ourself push limits and boundaries and prove to ourself "yes, i belong here, yes this is me. and i belong here" as we scramble around with other engineers trying to carve their way into the world, as we dance with dozens of strangers who for a brief moment we share connection with, and with the friends who we made along the way.

we fought in thailand, and it was then we realized that we're okay. we don't have to fight anymore, we don't have to prove anything anymore, and we can exist in a sport that raised us and grew with us to be just that - a hobby, a sport, a thing we loved and love.

we traveled by ourself in thailand, made dozens of friends, learned new ways of life, and felt loved by strangers in a way that was different than any man at home could ever give you.

we moved again, from one house to another, where the first average was 48 years of age (57 if you removed the outlier) and is now 23 years of age WITH you as the outlier. the energies are different, the vibes are different, and yet the love is the same.

the love for you, the love the world and the universe continues to give you, is always the same. whole, good, near unconditional. because you give love that is whole, good, and entirely unconditional.

and here we are, another year later, another decade older, and reflecting on how this year went. so fast, so slow, so long, and so rich. so rich with memories, so rich with the spectrum of emotions of a life well lived, and so, so tired haha. in a good way, but all we can wait to do is begin the next chapter of your life because

quite possibly, we may have found someone to share the rest of our lives with. and not in the ' i think this can work ' way we always say, or in the 'that's something i can overlook' way we always, always say.

there is something here where

quite possibly, entering 31 will definitely be so , so much more different. and at the end of the day, we will always be more than just okay, because we can survive anything and make the most of everything. like we always have, as we always have done. so cheers to you, at twenty nine and living life setting your goals, and creating a new vision for yourself because i promise you, you really do break away from the mold anyone has tried to keep you in and you spent this year being unabashedly, and wholly you. with so much love, an older, wiser, happier, and wholler you

how do i tell that man, who has been laying in my bed, who is currently laying in my bed, asleep soundly, deeply, when today he said "it isn't too late to back out" that it was already too late the day we agreed to see each other again after sharing coffee, the sunlight, conversations that felt too easy too smooth for us to have just been souls of this lifetime we were driving, the early sunlight warming us talking about a life we shared before but didn't share together one of many, many conversations and yet how do i tell this man, that as scared as i am for an unknown i had not planned for that with him, i know that i'm excited to share because it was already too late the morning we shared after we held each other and slept together and felt each other how do i tell this man already that i have been, and am falling in love with him as he lays sleeping in my bed playing games an arms' reach from me as he dances and cooks as he talks to his daughter while we are on the phone that it was already too late the exit had flown by miles ago, days ago to eject now?

it is already much too late

we were something more

in the gentleness of our eyes, soft, searching, seeing in the way our souls danced, intensity, intentionality, in the way our bodies melded, passionate, in the hope we gave each other, in the light we saw in each other- and the spotlight we gave if only to say "this is mine" and "i am yours" in the fleeting moments, in this short, brief, time it would be wrong to say it was just lust infatuation limmerence maybe maybe it was something more than that maybe it was love and a lifetime where we both needed something different but still needed to connect once, as if to check in and say "hey, it's okay, you're okay i'm still here, please do what you need to do" because that is all we had left to say "please, do what you need to do" and i will love you from afar in this lifetime and hope that in the next, or another lifetime, our souls found peace with each other

I got home today and cried the tears we both wanted to shed at dinner, the weight of a future two months away, 10 weeks away, 70 days away. The hurt of what is to come knowing full well, most relationships come to their end

But I came home today and cried, happy to hear how well received we both are in seeing and knowing each other, at our simplest gesture to beings in full colored detail

I cried today because I never felt a love that was so simple, so kind, so easy - my soul yearned for this connection, my brain knew it had to exist, and my weary heart has longed for it so much

To be seen is to be known, to be known is to be seen

I hope you are the last rider

I follow into war, already knowing

what parts of me will not leave unscathed

and know fully well, that when the times come

to pasture your weary steed

that’d you would let me go free

entirely and unabashedly

I still have yet to let go of these feelings

the thoughts, the wonderings, the yearnings

of what I want to have, what I want to be

and in so many of those heart beat spaces

I wonder how much love and laughter and light

between us existed

what the days meant to you, what I had meant

how the duality of two loves was palatable

and how you went to bed at night, never home

in any heart, and always wanting something

someone

I wonder how our story, if first, would tale

would you be with me here, then in Thailand,

before in redlands

would the stories and care between us

have grown the way I felt it could have

or fester because there wasn’t substance

to sustain either of our souls?

I still have yet to feel the entirety of you

break off of me, but every day I feel the sands of time

weather away at your grit, and feel

the smoothness of what was me,

before and untouched by your callousness

how much of me misses with envy for a false happiness

how much of me longs with loneliness for a true love

how much of me rages with admonishment for your cruelties

how much of me aches for a life moved forward from you

how can you not see how easily I see you

And know the rhythms of your silence,

The subtle pauses of a heart

waiting for the next pulse to beat,

How I know what you say in the subtexts

in the way your eyes laugh,

and your sighs are heavy,

the hesitations and pauses that fill spaces

more than words could ever hold

how can you not see me

who sees you entirely

i just want to be in love and to be in loved by

if success were a function of discipline, then i'd be an olympian rocket scientist with a nonprofit and a billionaire, because the easiest part of the day is to show up. the easiest part of the day is to do the work. the easiest part of the day is to eat the food, do the workout, and show up.

but it's the work, the time in between, from one activity to the other. from one something to the next something - it adds up for, and it takes away.

if it were a function of discipline, then why do my bones feel weary, and my soul haggard, my brain running on fumes, and my body just... heavy.

it's not just a function of discipline, as much as it is a compliment, you fail to see that the engine that's running is in need of a lot of care.

twenty-nine

i don’t know where to begin, but sometimes it’s nice to start in the middle instead of the beginning. hah. what a summer, eh? how nice, how liberating it is to finally let go of something that hurt you so much, so deeply, and to know that nothing could ever hurt you so much as the last three years with him, nothing could ever bend your soul and fracture your heart again. Nothing will ever be as hard as the time with him, not even the heartbreak of a break up.

guess what summer brought you? unconditional love. so much joy. so much to be seen in your entirety as you are now. your friends supporting you constantly, loving you tenderly, and making sure you knew you were never alone from the beginning until now.

your family finally seeing you glow again, and becoming the pillars you could have leaned on this whole time, should have leaned on this whole time.

you. summer brought you home to you. in abundance, in surplus, in full, in authenticity. and heck, to zoom out to the whole year - you moved out and into a new city, you made so many new friends, you're learning new things in school and in dance (oh yah, you get to start dancing), you're teaching, you're exploring, and you're falling into rhythms you used have. you are more full, in love, in life, in happiness, and the depths of emotions. life is easier, even though it's more challenging, it's easier. the demons are easier to wrestle and hug, the wit and banter you used to have is back, and fuck you look awesome.

131lbs of lean. you worked and ate your ass off for that. you deserve every ounce of muscle you got going for you. happy birthday to you, a year of so much laughter, so much joy, so much love, so much.

love and warmth, twenty-nine year old you

11/07/22

you are an affair

and a second option

and nothing more

because when the world was ending, when everything was falling apart, he turned to her and not you

took her in, gave her refuge, created something with her

and left you as a secondary option

a back up plan

and then he swore to you that

you were something more

and the world fell apart again, this time internally

and again

he turned to her

and built something stronger for them

while you waited and burned alive,

lied to you when you wanted the truth

left you hanging, stood you up

so many nights

so many days

and broke your heart

endlessly

the whole time you waited

dutifully

promising no plus ones, no dates, loyalty only to him

he gave that all to her, swearing he’d never see anyone but you, only took you, only yours

and he lied

all his friends met her

all her friends met him

because she was his girlfriend

he went to her family functions

he barely made time for yours

because he was her boyfriend

and you are nothing more

than an affair

a dirty secret

a side piece

convenient for now

disposable in the next moment

because if you really mattered so much

why are you still left in the same anguish

and why has nothing actually changed?

you have always been second

I cried about you today

because I’m realizing and feeling

how much I like you

and mourning how fleeting this could become

as I get more attached and feel you

I cried about you today

because I already know how sad I will be

when you move

because I can feel the ache

for hen I miss you more than I do already

I cried about you today

because I feel like a dead man walking

into an expiration date;

all I do is keep marching

because every part of this death march

is so beautiful

how beautiful it is to take this journey

knowing full well it would hurt

because it would be with you, by us

and I’ll be glad and better for it all

i hurt

and i ache, i drove home and thought, how beautiful this life is how good it feels, and also think I also feel so much weight that this life that feels easy, comes so easily with every breath, with every smile and laugh is counterbalanced once more with grief, anger, spite, and loss i miss you. and i'm sorry, i'm sorry for you being alone for me not knowing, for us not dancing that one night, i'm so sorry for the days, the times, i thought you would be here forever because you were always here for me i miss you, i miss your laugh and your soft gentle demeanor i miss just looking at you and smelling the cigarettes, how you would leave bits of you everywhere i miss you because your love for us for me was truly unconditional and so gentle i wish you were still here i don't miss you. but i also do. i don't need you. but i want to need to know that i could've been enough for you, would've been, should've been except we both know that was never meant to be Because I was so much more than you could ever be for me.

every full moon

she’ll only be able to think of me

and wonder

what it was that we were

twenty-eight

Well damn, look at me I made a post last year but couldn’t be good about it for 2022. Whoops.

A lot has happened, a lot more than I think we anticipated when we turned 27. 27 was hard, and strange, and a weird almost breaking point. But almost isn’t even the right word, we hovered at the precipice of breaking for a year. We watched fractures spread like spiderwebs on our fragile soul, deep enough to threaten collapse, but shallow enough to remain intact. It was a grueling year, turning 27.

28 was also grueling in its own way. You nut head, instead of quitting your job and looking for a new one like you’d say you would repeatedly, you instead took ANOTHER job (that actually paid you more and gave you more freedom and liberties), knocking your days off from 2 to 1. Okay, it wasn’t a job, it was an internship and it was pretty dope. And then, as if you couldn’t be busier, you decided that taking extra classes to go back to graduate school would be great. AND THEN, you decided to end the year with a fight camp.

Because, if you can get through school, working full time and more, and a fight camp, you can get through anything right?

Hell. Fucking. Yeah.

You fucking did it. You fucking nut case.

And where are we now? Writing this letter to ourselves almost two months late, in our new home. In San Luis Obispo. Because guess what? We got accepted into the graduate program.

It isn’t without its struggles, this workaholic schedule you SWEAR you detest but somehow find yourself back in it like a moth to a lightbulb. You definitely were walking a tightrope of sanity and stability, and even now as I write you’re still recovering from the burnout from this year. But you’re healthier, whole-er, and a fucking lot happier.

So, for all the struggles you went through. Cramming your schedule to JUST full of life, but not so much you killed yourself like you did as an undergrad, while still maintaining your solid friendships, family time, your relationship - you made it work, and god fucking damn are we basking in the glory of it now.

Your room is filled with gifts from friends, you get to exist as you want with housemates who match your energy because you picked them, you’re in a city you feel so comfortable and at home in that you wake up lost when you’re away, and you’re more whole.

You find a little more happiness in yourself and in your love. You find more stability, more support, and more sanity. Everything that went “wrong” as undergrad, you learned and made this year of 27 that much better. You don’t push your limits, and you set your boundaries, and you’ve learned to not feel so bad about it.

So cheers to you, because we did NOT expect to have a stellar year that we’ve had, and we did. Thank you for pushing through and showing us what we are capable of. Thank you for believing in yourself enough to just do more, to want to do more, and to do it well. Thank you for setting us up for success for this year. Thank you for letting go the baggage that we thought would be so hard when we entered 27.

Cheers to us 🥂

twenty-seven

it’s surreal, how much of a daze, haze, and fog you’ve felt yourself floating through this year. how, everytime you look down at your feet, the pools of water reflect a face you hardly recognize. how, when looking up you stare at a blank sky, no identifiable landmark, star, or beacon to give you direction or presence of time.

you continue walking, walking, walking through this cloud of grey, knowing that stopping isn’t an option but never knowing where “there” is.

looking back, you see the same grey blur, indistinguishable for the grey blur before you. what landmarks and milestones did you pass? surely, in the last year you must have walked by something surmountable.

so you keep stepping, stepping, stepping forward, hoping that with distance and time you can rise above the fog and appreciate the journey you’ve traveled thus far.

you’ve had support along the way, encountered many souls and added to the support group you once thought didn’t exist. you feel your heart pulse weakly in you, thank god you’re still there, alive.

and maybe, that’s what this year was meant to be: a testament to endurance, persistence, and unfortunately stubbornness.

cheers, in the most somber of ways,

you persist, which objectively, is better than surviving. may twenty-eight find us far from here

the last vestiges of you

are being shed from my womb,

and each cramp, each palpitation, each crimson drop

an echo

of when you were torn from us unready

to care for a very wanted you.

the final farewell, a soft release,

a gentle good-bye, a whisper carried away

on a warm spring breeze

forbidden fruit borne from love and the throes of passion,

for the handful of weeks we were together

and you grew within me, and I grew with you

thank you

for breathing life into my emotions,

for the tears that poured freely down my face,

for the radiance that reflected my heart’s joy,

for the bouts nausea and heightened senses,

for the snapshot of a future we will all share to completion and to term,

for being patient with us

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