Stories And Blurbs I'll Never Finish

A blog filled with a collection of thoughts and blurbs. Most are recent, some are old. [Also, partly a personal diary] ig: https://www.instagram.com/writingsandsuchx/

[writingsandsuch]

my apartment smells like coffee…

and i’m at peace. i mean, really. genuinely at peace. it’s such a strange surreal feeling to not have to be in this sick and incessant cycle of survival and rehabilitation.

it felt like for the last decade of my life all everyday ever was was rehabilitation. the renewal of what was broken before.

i saw this quote the other day that brought me to tears. it wrote, “but sometimes, even when i am in the warmth, i believe i am in the cold.”

it had a video of a woman wearing a coat, scarf, and gloves to the beach, eating ice cream as it melted in her hands under the sun.

it struck me. instantaneously, actually. i knew that i was that woman, and i have been for a long time.

the suffering is over, the snow has washed away and there is hope. and when i was truly at my absolute lowest i didn’t know that. i didn’t know there was hope and possibilities and a big warm world out there waiting for me to pry it open. grab it in my small curious hands, observe and stretch and really see where i fit and how others live their messy interesting beautiful lives.

the suffering is over. there is no more long, restless nights of tears and shivering and deep, deep unwavering loneliness. the kind of loneliness that settles in your ribs and make them rattle. and it would never stop, for all those years. the rattling and shivering would never fucking stop no matter how many coats i wore.

but now, things are okay. i’m 25 now. i have more tools and stronger sails to weather whatever comes my way. i have a happier disposition, and most important of all, confidence that i can make it out on the other side of that ridiculous relentless haze of depression.

my apartment smells like coffee and i am at peace.

and this morning, i think of that quote and the image of that woman wearing that thick coat at that warm beach, as im sure i will many other mornings from now on.

it’s warm now. the sun rays have peaked out from that thick, dark rainstorm cloud. it’s warm! it’s breezy! and for gods sake! look, the ice cream is melting!

i want to tell her to take that coat and scarf off. i want to tell her the storm is over.

i want to tell her to shed those pesky heavy layers and enjoy the sun.

go live and love and cry and make lots and lots of mistakes.

go on, girl. it’s your time now.

go and seek those happy nights to happy days.

- k

[writingsandsuch]

Summer.

And I remember those summers growing up, the ones that seemed endless and hazy and slow.

It'd always felt like I was waiting for something, although I was not sure what or when or where it was. But just knowing that there was something. And that was enough to carry me through all those days, all those honey-kissed afternoons, nothing but the lazy swaying of trees outside my window and the patient, constant ticking of the tired clock hung in the dining room.

I'd spent most of these summers daydreaming, yearning, writing and reading and living my life through all these fictional characters that I'd throw myself into one way or the other. Living out their stories, their pain, their heartbreak and sorrows and anxieties.

I couldn't wait to grow up. I mean, really. It was all I ever thought about, all I ever wanted. All those stories of these wild 20-something year old girls running through the streets of some small town in Italy with a rosy-cheeked boy with wild eyes and curly hair.

I wanted that. That excitement, that unsureness of what tomorrow has to bring and nothing but the understanding of the importance of the here and now. I wanted the wind in my hair and bare feet touching grass, feeling the earth shift under me and rest between my toes.

I remember those summers growing up, afternoon falling away with whatever slow, lazy guitar song I'd chosen playing in my headphones. Staring at the ceiling, wondering, waiting. Waiting for whatever it was that I was dreaming of on that given day.

And so here I am, in the reality of that little girl dreaming all those summers ago. And I don't know where she's gone. All the things she's been waiting for are here, standing there right on the precipice. Those dreams of the wind in the hair and the earth beneath her feet and that kiss from a rosy-cheeked boy on a warm summer day.

I don't know where she's gone, but I need her now. I need her to tell me all she's known and dreamed and wanted. Because now I can be that character, the one she's written in her mind all those afternoons where I'd stare out the windows of those quiet suburb streets.

And to that dreamy-eyed little girl, I miss her, dearly. I need her, fervently. I think of her, always.

[writingsandsuch]

Love and Pride and Everything In Between

I've thought about love and all the ways it manifests. In a lingering gaze, a slanted smile. In the subtle tingling of lips from all those cheeky stolen kisses. In a flushed face and wide, beady, curious eyes.

It's subtle, sometimes. Mostly. At first, barely recognizable, but always present and always real and forever yours.

The moment may pass, sure. But the feeling of your hand on my knee does not. No, instead it lingers and it hovers and clouds my thoughts, mind spinning wildly with thoughts of you.

And I've thought about love and all the ways it goes against all reason, all logic, all volition. There is no reasoning with love, there is no right or wrong. Just lawlessness and imperfection. Forever willing and never ceasing and always, always there.

I've thought about pride and how it all seems to fall away when I’m with you. How couldn’t it? It cannot, not with love.

Not with your gaze on mine.

All there is and all there can be is your trembling lips meeting mine, all the noise of the day melting around us. Around you, around your pink lips and slanted smile.

And there cannot be ego in our late night "I miss you’s" or our nervous first kiss. I still remember, it was the first warm Sunday of the year, a false Spring. You’d leaned in, touched my cheek. And I knew what was to come.

“What if people see?” I said. There goes that pride.

“Let them.” you said. Definitively, decisively. And that’s when you kissed me and the world went quiet. And that’s when I understood.

There is no reasoning with the shaking warmness of the other. There is no pride in that first admittance of love, that confession and declaration that yes, it is you before me.

Neither sure when it began, neither sure how it will end, but both yearning and present and forever in this moment.

[writingsandsuch]

Why I Write (Pt. 1)

When you look back on life, on an event or a person or a period of time, you never remember the nitty gritty details, never remember the specifics or the technicalities, but you will always remember the way it made you feel.

And that’s what writing is.

All those words, all those t’s crossed and i’s dotted, all it is, all it’s really meant to be is a feeling being described, transferred, and received.

Sometimes there are moments in life that you wish you could relive. Sometimes there are sensations, just little ones, like the heat rising from a cup of tea in the early hours of the morning. Or like the sound of children laughing outside on a calm summer afternoon, muffled but loud all at the same time, and always, always recognizable. The clink of ice swirling around a cool glass of water, perspiration dribbling down the sides of a glass. The quiet thump thump thump of your heart when you’re nervous, the feeling of skin against skin.

There are these little infinity’s, these little bubbles of “what ifs” that exist, untouched and unwritten. Sometimes I feel like it’s my duty to write them. I feel like it’s my duty to tell their stories, however they may be, or whatever form they come in. Sometimes they come in little fragments and pieces, or other times in part of a conversation, other times in just a wisp of a feeling, faint, barely there, yet strong and unmissable all at the same time.

I write to feel something, and to make others feel it too. I write to make these little sensations, these little infinity’s, these specks of dust so ignored and brushed over and unthought of, and I breathe into them and make them eternal. 

The power that holds, the power in words, in pencil against paper, in eager hands typing much too fast against a keyboard. The glow in a quiet room, just me and my words, and no one else. The intimacy that exists in that moment, where my thoughts have bled onto a page.

That is why I write.

[writingsandsuch]

Always In My Head

You’re everywhere, at all times. I see you in the most obscure things, in places I never thought I’d find you. You always find a way to permeate every thought, every sensation, every minuscule moment or emotion. I see you in the particles of dust floating in the early morning rays, small little infinities, bubbling over, tangling within and without of each other. They remind me of you, in their simplistic complexity, in their beauty, in their lightness.

I see you in warm quiet afternoons. See you in the coolness of a pillow after a long, tiresome day. You come out the most in these moments, the quiet ones, where I’m able to remember words you’ve said or expressions you’ve made or songs you’ve shown me. Sometimes you come in a tune, a faint one, barely there but still unmissable.

I see you in the tall aspen trees, see you in their sturdiness, in their vivid and striking greens. They remind me of you, in their brightness and liveliness in the day and their slow, somnambulant swaying in the night. The push and pull, to and from the shore, waves pulling me in. That’s what it feels like, sometimes, when I think of you.

I see you in beautiful sunsets. See you in the bleeding pinks and oranges, in the reds and cooling hues of blue. See you in the stars dusted across the night sky.

You once told me the stars we see are already dead, balls of gas long gone. When we look up, we’re looking at the past, that’s what you told me, and I remember these things, always, and keep and tuck them away. I never know theyre there, until moments like these.

The nights start out cold, long, quiet. Then there it is. Your voice drifting back into my mind. And I recall the words you’ve said.

It’s not fair, sometimes. You come and go as you please. I never know when you’ll reveal yourself again. But when you do, it’s acrid and pungent. You’re here, and it’s all encompassing, hardly ignorable. But the next second you’re gone. Like a phantom.

It’s striking to me, how you’re always in my head. Sometimes more prominent, sometimes fleeting, sometimes stubbornly constant, other times achingly present. However you are, in whatever form, you’re still there. Still here.

Still always in my head.

[writingsandsuch]

12.7.23 - 5:28pm

I think I’ve come to find as I’ve gotten older that it’s possible to be surrounded by others and still feel so so lonely.

Most of the time I feel there is nothing worse than being alone. Nothing worse than waking up to an empty bed, or empty house, empty anything. I’ve always felt there needed to be somebody, anybody, whenever and whoever and wherever I was.

It didn’t matter if they were kind, it didn’t matter if they cared what I had to say or thought or felt. Didn’t matter if they respected me or loved me. They just needed to be there.

And even if they were these things, no difference was made. I was still lonely.

I’d always appreciated the sound of life around me. Whether it’s cars passing down the street outside, or distant voices floating from through the walls and ceilings. I just couldn’t bear absolute silence, or the feeling that someone wasn’t there within arms reach.

I’ve always felt insecure by the notion that I do not know how to take care of myself.

Why should it be others telling me how and when to smile or laugh? Why should it be others telling me what or where to eat, what to wear and if I looked nice? Why couldn’t I do these things for myself and for the sake of no one else but myself? It’s exhausting.

But even now, at a time in my life where I have all the freedom to choose who I give my time to and how, I still stick myself in similar situations and with people with similar tendencies as those I was so intent on running away from growing up. I couldn’t wait to be this shining, glowing, completely independent beautiful grown girl. I couldn’t wait to have autonomy, couldn’t wait to decide who to hangout with and where to go based on how I felt that day.

And now that I have all these choices, I choose wrong. I choose trauma, I choose the same old with the same people.

I stopped writing for a while because I didn’t think I’d know what to say. I couldn’t explain to myself why I felt so lonely and so low when this was supposed to be the time in my life I worked so hard to get to. None of it made sense.

I was embarrassed and ashamed that I worked for everything my childhood self wanted. For the job, the apartment, the city, the clothes, the hair. Everything I wanted, I worked for and I got. And it still wasn’t enough.

I’m still that same scared and lonely little girl with swollen eyes and tear struck cheeks. That same scared and lonely little girl with so many questions and so little answers.

That same scared and lonely little girl with hopes too big and reality too small.

[writingsandsuch]

on the notion of love

how beautiful it is, how wonderful it is, how needed it is to be loved, even if just for a moment.

it’s amazing, really, the way it always starts. slow, unsure, frantic. both parties shy, neither saying much but minds both racing.

oh how beautiful it is, when you feel that feeling. you know, the butterflies, the fear of the unknown, and the wanting. always, always that pesky, incessant wanting.

and oh how wonderful it is to experience yourself in the eyes of a lover. experience the feeling of how they touch your thighs, in a softer way than you’ve ever thought to do on your own. their fingers swirling in patterns on the surface of yours with all the thoughts left unspoken. parts of skin never touched and unreached, now being touched and grazed over and kissed.

and oh how they kiss your belly, in ways you’ve never realized would feel so tender and warm. how they interlace your fingers with theirs, palms once cold now warm and pink and theirs, wholly and only theirs.

oh how needed it is to smell their scent, smell the way it radiates on their skin, and how different it smells on your clothes and pillow cases when the moment has gone and they have departed.

and yes, even if it is just for a moment, there still lies that mutual understanding. that mutual unsureness, just two souls stumbling in the dark, not knowing where one ends and the other begins.

and so on the notion of love, there is that beauty, that wonder, that calamitous necessity of it all. that feeling carried through generations and across all galaxies.

and oh how wonderful it is.

even if just for the moment.

[writingsandsuch]

what does it mean to be a writer?

well, the obvious answer anyone would give would be to write. it’s what i always thought of as the answer too, and i felt this uneasiness and guilt if i’d gone more than a few weeks or months without writing. could i really call myself that? a writer? let alone a good one?

the title itself is daunting, demanding. it asks for so much, asks for it to be proven and verified, right there in the moment you choose it as yours. it can’t be a baseless statement, there has to be something tangible to back it up. like okay, you’re a writer? so write. you’re a comedian? so tell me a joke. you’re a runner? so run.

it’s funny how the more i tried to fit into the writer stereotype the further away i grew from it.

most days the writings would come to me, a sentence or a moment i’d notice on the many walks i needed to clear my head. it’d repeat in my head, over and over. it’d burn into my eyelids if i closed them for too long. it’d inch and crawl up my arms, and i’d grow restless. fingers tapping, thoughts racing. and there it was. this incessant need to create something, anything.

and it didn’t matter what it was. i’d see a child smile, and want to write about childhood and how it feels so close yet so far and so fleeting, and how i feel like that same child every single day. i’d see a tree and think of the time i went camping as a teenager and was so lonely and sad. i’d think about when i looked up at the sky and saw how the stars and trees hugged each other, each one beginning where the other would end, and how i wanted to write about it that night all those years ago before i even knew what it was to really write. i felt that same itching then, too. the same burning of the eyelids and the wanting to without knowing the what.

my therapist said i’m much more in tune with my emotions than most. when she said that it all made sense, why i notice moments and why they strike me so deeply to the point of wanting to, to the point of needing to put pen to paper and create.

i remember when i first discovered i like writing.

it felt so easy. i’d start off with that first sentence. the one that would be burned into my eyelids. then, came the movement, the fingers moving at rapid speed, the tingling. it felt real and electric, like i’d discovered something that didn’t yet have its own name. i was so sure of it, whatever it was. so sure it could take me places. so sure i could build wondrous worlds and tell tales of faraway lands and it would all be beautiful. it would all be real, and it would all be mine. and no one could take that from me.

but with age comes doubt, and with doubt comes fear. i fear calling myself a writer, fear telling others how much i crave finding words to describe those moments that strike me. fear how much feelings i held, so much so that they’d fill me up so intensely to the point that i had to write them down. i didn’t have a choice.

to me, that’s what it is to be a writer. it’s to feel, and wonder, and want so much. more than you ever thought possible. to be a writer is to keep all those recollections of moments and emotions and fragments in time. to be a writer is to remember the smells, the facial expressions, the winding roads and the feeling of the air rushing through your fingers. it’s to feel and to want and to ache.

to be a writer is to hold these moments close, whether in the form of a poem or a sentence or a story, they’re all there. they’re all tangible and all real and all written on whatever page you could find closest.

so yeah, i do feel. and i do crave and want. and i write.

sometimes, all the time, or somewhere in between.

i write.

[writingsandsuch]

when i was a little girl, the world was in black and white.

sweet or sour, friends or foes, happiness or sadness, good days or bad days. and i could pluck each situation or thing or person and put them in one category in my mind. nothing was muddled or confusing or needed much explanation, if any at all.

the world was good to me, and i loved it for that. days were honey golden sweet, nights quiet and wondrous and a deep, beautiful blue.

i’m still young, but older now. nothing makes sense, not nearly the way it did to me before. i thought i knew myself better than anyone, thought i had fixed dreams and desires and passions. thought i could tap into these dreams and passions and simply and beautifully breathe them into fruition. but between the gloomy days and long, sleepless nights they got lost along the way.

and so i wake up one day realizing i’ve gone, somehow, some way. i’m still me, but much more filtered. much more anxious and much less sure of which situation or thing or person belonged in which category. it’s this incessant self doubt but also lack of sense of self, being so outside of myself yet also too tucked within.

i’m still young, but older now.

bits and pieces of that little girl is still there. the one that loved bright purple and the taste of cinnamon. the one that hated the cold and cried and cried when the world seemed so much so.

days rush on and on, some speckled with that hopeful little girl and others this more cynical, darker, less present me. but most are a constant back and forth between the two. i’ve gotten better, but still have no sense of balance or in between.

it’s frustrating how scary change is. frustrating how everything good hinges on the need for change and how stagnancy can be so debilitating and boring, but comfortable. this lack of knowing, who i am or what i want or why i want what i want. instead focusing on others and what they eat or how they walk or look or dress.

i’m still young, but older now.

and nothing makes sense, not nearly the way it did to me before. i’m not sure when it will or if it ever will. and it’s that not knowing how many more times i’ll lose myself to find myself to lose myself again, and which choice, ultimately, i may decide on.

[writingsandsuch]

Realignment

“The cost of daydreaming is always this moment of return, the realignment with what had been before, but now seemed a little worse.”

I think about that quote quite often. I think about what it means for me, think about how it makes me feel. It’s a life long story told in a few words.

The realignment.

That moment where the madding crowd dwindles, stutters, fizzles out, before the rooms completely empty. That moment where the applause drifts into a distant mumble. That moment where you’ve taken yourself off the stage and returned to who you were before. I’d dreaded this moment before, was always afraid of it creeping up on me. Always afraid of returning to who I really am.

What I realized, though, is life often goes like that. Where you have those big, grand moments. Where the stars shine a little brighter, where the champagne sparkles and swishes a little prettier, where you laugh a little louder.

Moments where it feels as though everything around you is perfect, where the world is your oyster, where you could simply just stretch your hand out, reach for the stars, and grab one in your hand.

The stars always shine at first. Always glimmer and beam, but they also always die out. But I’ve began to find solace in the return, comfort in knowing that I will come home to myself. Every single time.

So it goes like this. You have those moments. You drink in every second, let it run down your throat like ice water on a sweltering summer day.

And then you wake up the next morning, and you eat your breakfast, peach jam on wheat. You wear your clothes, the simple ones, the ones easy for you to lounge at home in. You do all the mundane things you’ve always been doing. As though the stars weren’t in your grasp just moments ago.

That was what the last year was to me. This fantasy world I’d built up for myself. One where none of my problems really mattered, one where I put the entire world in someone else’s hands. One where I placed importance only in moments that were shared with others, and never in ones where I was there for myself.

One day I’d looked in the mirror and I saw myself for the first time. I mean really saw myself. And it wasn’t when I had all those distractions around me. It wasn’t when I had stars glimmering in my hands, or gold drenched on my fingertips. It wasn’t with the big crowds with smiling faces, with the fancy clothes and obnoxiously bright confetti and drunken blissful naivety.

It was just me.

The girl with the plain brown eyes and peach jam toast.

[writingsandsuch]

Introspection.

"Freedom is walking to where your heart desires without being questioned about it." -Unknown

I cried in therapy today. And a lot, too. It was surreal the way I felt those twelve years of emotions well up inside me, surreal the way I felt them bubble and fester and rush out all at once in the form of silent, hot, wet streams. It was so fast and all encompassing that I had no choice but to let it consume me.

I've always hated crying in front of people, and yet I've never been able to have enough control to not do it either. Whether I was happy, sad, angry, or some indistinguishable mix of all three, I've always had way more emotion inside me than I knew how to handle.

She'd said something to me so gut-wrenching and real. And true.

The thing about truth is its way of seeping into your bones. You'll know it when you hear it, and you'll feel its fiery sword stabbing and twisting exactly where it hurts.

She'd said I do not know how good it is I have it. I talk of goals and of achievements as if I do not have any. When I spoke, she listened. She listened to me speak of all my felt insecurities and shortcomings and "can't do's" and "haven't done's" with my legs and fingers shaking. Intently, she waited for me to finish. And then there it was. That fiery sword.

"Here's what I didn't hear you say," she replied, "Do you know how much you've actually done? How much you've achieved? How ahead you are of other 23, or 20-somethings in general?"

I'd gone silent. What could I really say? That incessant feeling of being trapped, or not being or doing or saying enough, all of it was fake. My reality was so far gone because of this belief I've accomplished nothing, that I have no self-restraint, no strength or will. And here she was, saying I've already done all it is I need to do. But what it is that I want?

I've had this freedom all along, but I still box myself in that same old bird cage. Still make myself believe nothing's changed, still make myself believe I haven't improved, that I can't do this, I'll never be that.

I still truly, honestly believe that this is the life I've made for myself and that there's no way out. Still believed that there were happy people and then there was me, and that the two could and would never converge.

God, it seems so ridiculous writing this out, but these are really, truly my thoughts.

"What I would have done if I knew what I know now at 23," she'd said. "The sky is the limit for you." I sighed, more tears came. She smiled. "It really is."

Even now, writing out what she said to me still feels so striking. These cyclical thoughts of downplaying my accomplishments and giving myself the same conditional love I received growing up, it's making me stand in my own way.

There's this whole life for myself just waiting for me outside of the weight on the scale and the anxious thoughts and the self-hatred. I really, truly want to release and forgive and realize that I quite literally am not under anyone's control anymore.

I can do, be, wear, go, feel, see, experience, internalize, expel whatever and whoever, whenever I want.

"The tears," she'd said. "What are they for?" But I hadn't known how to respond in the moment.

I realize now that those tears were grief. They were introspection. They were the realization that I'm so fucking tired of standing in the way of my own happiness.

[writingsandsuch]

thoughts.

my thoughts used to tuck me in at night.

they’d wrap around me, warm and sweet and reminiscent of all things good. my imagination would run wild, i’d dream of faraway lands and lush gardens and flowers smiling in the wind. i’d dream, always, asleep or awake or somewhere in between until i fell into one state or the other.

it was never a problem for me, really. the emotions i’d feel came naturally and easily and softly. i’d sink sometimes, sure. but with a soft landing, always.

it’s an emotion i took for granted at the time. being able to feel safe in my own head. being able to sit in dark, still silence and not even notice. i was too preoccupied with these thoughts, dancing and dreaming and swaying between the warm salty tides.

my thoughts used to make me feel. and i mean really, really feel. i was so outside of myself that i could be any person on any given day held together by nothing but merely this coalition of strings, loosely woven between and within these abundant and infinite worlds.

whichever world i chose to be in that day was all mine, and it’d linger in and out of my thoughts until night time. in the same dark, quiet stillness is where these characters would shine their brightest. and so, i’d dream. of ancient towns that no longer exist, of airy croissants and gooey blueberry jam and a boy with rosy cheeks and a sultry gaze. i’d remember these dreams, fall into them, and keep them with me for nights that would follow, for however long i wished to cling to that world.

i miss this way of living, of dreaming, of wanting all that was not mine, and letting them go all the same. it seemed i was less scared to ask for these things. wanting, wishing, waning and waxing and in awe of all the wondrous ways to exist in this world and the next.

[writingsandsuch]

01.08.2024

It's a Monday evening in January and I can't stop thinking.

I haven't stopped, really, at least not since the new year. It's this odd feelings of wanting nothing more except change. Any change. And yet things staying exactly the same as before.

I think about how I can't stop thinking, mostly. Among other things. I think about how all I ever do is wish for useless shit. And how with each wish I wholeheartedly believe that it'll change me. And it never does. At least, not for long. I still remain the same. Anxious, sad, wishful of whatever it is I didn't have at the moment. Envious of whatever it was that I had just wished away.

And so I go on like this. In this limbo of everything that never was.

Most days are spent aimlessly in my apartment. It's easier when it's raining, because I then at least know there is some reason for the weakness, the melancholy, the tears.

I saw a message I had sent to my best friend four years ago. I'd asked her, "do you ever feel like you're wasting your youth away?" and proceeded to wistfully dream how I wish I had just about everything I have as I am currently writing this. Four years later, the wishes have changed, but I still carry the same sadness. Same tears. Same feeling of wasting away my youth on depression.

Perhaps four years from now, when my wishes are different and my envy lies with the life I have now, I'll at least have some sort of familiar feeling. This deja vu, this final knowing and acceptance of the more things will change, the more I will stay the same.

[writingsandsuch]

12.7.23 - 5:28pm

I think I’ve come to find as I’ve gotten older that it’s possible to be surrounded by others and still feel so so lonely.

Most of the time I feel there is nothing worse than being alone. Nothing worse than waking up to an empty bed, or empty house, empty anything. I’ve always felt there needed to be somebody, anybody, whenever and whoever and wherever I was.

It didn’t matter if they were kind, it didn’t matter if they cared what I had to say or thought or felt. Didn’t matter if they respected me or loved me. They just needed to be there.

And even if they were these things, no difference was made. I was still lonely.

I’d always appreciated the sound of life around me. Whether it’s cars passing down the street outside, or distant voices floating from through the walls and ceilings. I just couldn’t bear absolute silence, or the feeling that someone wasn’t there within arms reach.

I’ve always felt insecure by the notion that I do not know how to take care of myself.

Why should it be others telling me how and when to smile or laugh? Why should it be others telling me what or where to eat, what to wear and if I looked nice? Why couldn’t I do these things for myself and for the sake of no one else but myself? It’s exhausting.

But even now, at a time in my life where I have all the freedom to choose who I give my time to and how, I still stick myself in similar situations and with people with similar tendencies as those I was so intent on running away from growing up. I couldn’t wait to be this shining, glowing, completely independent beautiful grown girl. I couldn’t wait to have autonomy, couldn’t wait to decide who to hangout with and where to go based on how I felt that day.

And now that I have all these choices, I choose wrong. I choose trauma, I choose the same old with the same people.

I stopped writing for a while because I didn’t think I’d know what to say. I couldn’t explain to myself why I felt so lonely and so low when this was supposed to be the time in my life I worked so hard to get to. None of it made sense.

I was embarrassed and ashamed that I worked for everything my childhood self wanted. For the job, the apartment, the city, the clothes, the hair. Everything I wanted, I worked for and I got. And it still wasn’t enough.

I’m still that same scared and lonely little girl with swollen eyes and tear struck cheeks. That same scared and lonely little girl with so many questions and so little answers.

That same scared and lonely little girl with hopes too big and reality too small.

[writingsandsuch]

Threshold.

“Let someone love you just the way you are - as flawed as you might be, as unattractive as you sometimes feel, and as unaccomplished as you think you are. To believe you must hide of all the parts of you that are broken, out of fear that someone else is incapable of loving what is less than perfect, is to believe that sunlight is incapable of entering a broken window and illuminating a dark room.”

— Marc Hack

I’m not sure what it is. Not sure when it began, where it ended, or where it will go. I just know it’s inescapable and confusing. This feeling of wanting to change something, anything, everything. Simultaneously and suddenly and with so much vitriol that it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

It’s that sickness of living in the same way, always, someway. Days blending in and out and intricately intertwined in the worst way possible. Too much of yesterday takes up today, and much of today takes up tomorrow. Each day is never truly its own, but instead ripples and reflections and remnants of what was there the morning before.

I’m not sure what it is.

I just know it’s here, and it’s inescapable and confusing. I feel it everywhere now, the edges of my fingertips and at the nerves in my toes. And so here I stand, with all this baggage and sorrow. Ready to cast it away, as if it were nothing.

It’s funny how moments can feel so different from one another. One second, in a melancholic daze. And the next, being swayed by the soft breeze of the calming waves. Storms never last forever, yes. But I feel it now, whatever it is. Some odd sensation that, storms come as they may, they will no longer make me go back to that place.

And so I stand here now, at the threshold. Between present and future, staring at everything I’ve never had. It’s scary, peaceful, an enigmatic representation of knowing nothing, and feeling all.

Whatever it was, wherever it is, wherever it’s going, it can’t hurt me now. 

Not anymore.

[writingsandsuch]

September Blues

I’ve been feeling quite strange for a while now.

Strangeness translates into discomfort, and the discomfort translates into dysphoria. But most of all, above all, I’ve been feeling lonely.

I haven’t been alone. At least, not really. I have steady, easy, morning conversations in the living room with my roommate. Afternoons are spent at work, evenings either spent in class or with my boyfriend. I am rarely alone. And yet, loneliness is constant, present, and increasingly occupying every inch of my thoughts.

It’s been hard to gather what I want to say, or phrase things how I want them to be phrased. I’ve grown quiet, impatient, yearning for something much more than I have, and yet plagued with this dilemma of not knowing what that thing is.

It seems as if I’ve lost myself, completely. I do not know what I enjoy, and I no longer enjoy the things I used to. I am stagnant, and yet the days and weeks are moving faster around me than what it felt like before.

Out of all these things, I am deeply, deeply, sad.

It’s September and I am lonely. It’s September and I am sad. It’s September and evening time, breeze cooling my skin every so often as I look out at the stretch of trees before me.

I am sitting on my balcony, accompanied by yet another five dollar glass of red wine from the clearance section, and my cat. She’s distracted by the bugs and cobwebs, and yet seems to look at me every couple of moments as if she can sense the sadness within me. I smile at her, softly. She stares at me, knowingly. And returns to her cobweb and bug hunt. And so I return to my thoughts.

I am not sure when this shift of strangeness begun. At one point, it felt like I knew everything there was to know about myself.

I knew how to make myself smile, knew how to make myself laugh. I knew what foods I liked, where I liked to go. I knew what clothes to buy for myself, and I knew how to wear them and when to wear them and who to wear them with. I knew my curves, my scent, the way my ribs would feel against my fingertips as I soothed over them in the cool of the night. I knew myself very well, extremely well, and in ways I yearn to know now.

This introspection has been a theme in my mind as of the last few days. This lack of knowing. This naivety when it comes to the subject of myself. It’s embarrassing almost, how little I have come to feel self-connection as I’ve grown older. Was it the stress? Was it the pressure? Or was it simply self abandonment in the futile pursuit of the approval of others?

Whatever it was, it has turned me into this jumbled mess of emotions and anxious ticks, having no clue where I stood in my own life.

I used to have dreams, feel every moment of my life so deeply and so innately that it was no question what I wanted at any point in time. I loved sunsets and summer nights. I loved the bright oranges of the leaves in mid-October. I loved earl gray tea and thick, cable knit sweaters. I loved candles and pumpkin pie and the smell of coffee in the morning. It was in these moments I felt comforted by the slow ease of the dwindling afternoons, and the somber yet peaceful evenings. My life felt like my own, and my desires and dreams felt woven deep within me.

And now, I feel none of these things.

Here I am at a time in my life where I can have all these things, more even. And yet, I am stagnant. And yet, I am lonely.

And yet, I am blue.

[writingsandsuch]

The Subtle Art of Kissing

“No, I don’t think I will kiss you, although you need kissing, badly. That’s what’s wrong with you. You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how.” — Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind

And so it begins like this.

Always, with hesitation. A glare that lingers just one moment over a second. Eyes on eyes, then on the nose, then lastly, the lips.

Always, always, lips.

And so it happens like this, this dance. Eyes moving between these islands, just barely escaping the notice of its subject. And so it continues. Eyes, nose, lips, until finally, they see. They’ve noticed.

And so you meet their eyes again, but this time it feels strange. As though they know something. They twinkle this time, too. They look beautiful and deep and raven with immutable emotion.

Yet still, your gaze is beckoned back to the lips.

They, too, look different this time. They are tilted upwards, towards heaven, towards light. And now, towards you.

And so your lips are, at one moment, yours. Yours and hungry and desperate.

And the next, theirs. Theirs and warm and swimming amongst the waves of their lips.

And so begins the push and pull. The milliseconds that pass where they pull away feeling so cold and dark and bleak. The milliseconds of anticipation of them coming back towards yours. The hitch of breath as they once again pull you into them. And lastly, the moments where they return feeling like wondrous bouts of incomprehensible technicolor.

And when all is said and done, you are left with nothing to do but taste but the subtle taste of them on your tongue. You are left with nothing to do but feel the subtle feeling of the tingle and the buzz, resting just above the surface of your face and mouth.

You are left with nothing to do but revel upon the subtle art of kissing.