the rooftop girl

a life remembered in pieces.

[therooftopgirl]

001

There are so many things I wish I could tell you.

Not to change your path, because I wouldn't. Every joy, every mistake, every goodbye becomes a part of the person you're still growing into. But if I could sit beside you for a little while, beneath that same sky you love so much, there are a few things I'd want you to know.

One day you'll discover that hearts don't always break all at once.

Sometimes they unravel quietly, in ordinary moments, until you wake one morning and realise you're carrying pieces of yourself you no longer recognise.

The hardest part isn't always losing someone.

Sometimes it's losing the version of yourself that existed while they were there.

You'll spend days wondering if you'll ever laugh the same way again. Whether the lightness you once carried simply disappeared. You'll search for the person you used to be, not yet understanding that she isn't gone.

She's becoming.

You'll learn that love is both the gentlest and the fiercest thing you'll ever know. It will teach you how deeply you can care for another person, and just as quickly, how deeply you can ache when they leave.

You'll discover that the people who shape you aren't always the ones who stay.

Some will arrive only to teach you something. Some will leave without explaining why. Some will love you imperfectly. And some will remind you that you are worthy of being loved exactly as you are.

There will be days when the world feels unbearably heavy, and others when it feels impossibly beautiful. Somehow, they'll both exist at the same time.

I know that sounds confusing now.

One day, it won't.

So keep looking at the stars.

Keep asking impossible questions.

Keep believing there's more.

[therooftopgirl]

finally brave enough to put my writing out there… also me, 0.02 seconds later… refresh. refresh. refresh. oh. right. nobody knows i exist… hello…? nobody cares...

[therooftopgirl]

004

Some afternoons she would ride her bike around the neighbourhood, disappearing for hours without ever really going very far. Other days, she and Eli would take their RipStiks outside and race each other up and down the street, laughing when one of them inevitably lost their balance and went flying.

There was always something to do.

The backyard could become anything they wanted it to be. A game could start with no real plan and somehow last until someone called them inside. They didn't need much.

Continue reading 004 →

[therooftopgirl]

003

There was a time when home felt like the safest place in the world.

Not safe in the way Vaea would come to understand the word years later. She didn't think about locked doors or money in the bank or whether there was food in the fridge. She was a child.

Safety was simply the feeling of never having to wonder.

She never wondered whether there would be dinner that night. She never wondered who would pick her up from school. She never wondered whether there would be clean clothes waiting somewhere in the house, or whether someone would notice if she was sick, sad, hungry or hurt.

Those things simply happened.

Continue reading 003 →

[therooftopgirl]

002

There was a girl who grew up believing that the books she read, the movies she watched and the stories she was told weren’t just that.

They existed somewhere.

Maybe not exactly as they were written, but somewhere.

She looked up at the sky and dreamed not of impossible things, but of places she hoped she might one day reach.

She watched birds.

She watched planes disappear into the clouds.

She watched ants crawl between blades of grass that must have seemed enormous beside them.

She watched leaves surrender to the wind.

Continue reading 002 →