writing takes space

[writingtakesspace]

2017-09-11, 23.00

I fell in love with you three times.

The first time, it wasn’t romantic love, it was platonic, but I feel it necessary enough, and specific enough, that I want to mention it anyway. It was fall, the nights were long and the evenings dark. You sat in my house, on my couch, there was a fire, we had candles and you talked about a book you wanted to write. It was nothing special really, except for the fact that we’d never done it before. The whole sleeping over, the whole being friends-thing. We’d just started out really, despite the fact that we’d “known” each other for a couple of years already. I fell in love with you then because you had an enthusiasm for creating, for telling stories and you saw nothing weird in sharing those with me. Like I could be in on the secret, even if there wasn’t anything really secret about it. Just ideas, thrown around, and I told you about mine. The difference between you and everybody else was that we had an exchange, something to gain from each other, something to be enthusiastic in return. And I fell in love with you, platonic and fast, because I felt I’d find someone who would always feel like home.

The second time, was the first time I told you that I did love you. At least, that’s what I think, because I cannot recall exactly, but this is how I remembered it. It was in the stairwell outside of your parent’s apartment, I was on my way home, we’d said goodbye and I was already walking away, my back to you at the door as you closed it. I don’t know who said it first, I don’t know if I responded or if you responded to me but both of us said it. Echoing, and I was walking to the bus. Simple. Just like that. Like it was something we’d said a million times like we’d never thought we meant anything less. If that wasn’t love, I don’t know what was, but it felt different from the time when I’d just felt it by myself; now it was shared, known, and it was distinct.

The third time, was the same week I left. Days before. I was once again leaving, but this time from what was now your apartment. I don’t even remember what day it was or why I had been there because I was at yours so many times in those final weeks, but I do remember that you hugged me in the door, just like usual. I don’t think we ever leave without a hug. What you did though, was kiss my temple just before letting go. This was not even the first time, it was the second time. You’d done the same just a few days before, or the week before, or whenever it was, and the first time I had just been almost…. confused? Because although we are very open with each other, outspoken and physical, we there’s not usually any sort of kisses in our repertoire. But you kissed me then, again, a second time, on my temple, and I looked at you, wonder in my eyes, looking for something, and it wasn’t there when you looked back. I didn’t think much of it, then, and I let it be, said goodbye and left. As you can tell, I didn’t understand it then, that I’d fallen in love with you again. But I know now, and I’m not really sure, but I think maybe you do too.

So, there it is. I’ve fallen for you these three times, and if I know myself, I’ll probably fall for you many more times over.

[writingtakesspace]

(18-04-06, 19.57)

It is funny, that I have now fallen in love with you four times. I don’t think it’s platonic now, but I am not sure how well it is doing wither of us. What felt natural before now feels uncertain, like we’re having a stand-off where we don’t know what we’re up against. You and me? You versus me? It’s not easy, and it kind of hurts sometimes, but I have fallen in love with you again. I realised when you texted that you lov me after saying good night, and my stomach flipped. It hasn’t done that before. You didn’t mean anything new by it, surely, but I felt like it meant something new to me. It scares me. I don’t want t rush. I am a rational person and I can see that things like this tend to blow over. I don’t want to further this and then realise I was misstaken, or that I’ll change my mind, or dive in just to realise you’re not diving with me. I don’t want to be where I have been, and I’m frightened that if I try it, we’re doomed. Not just romantically but platonically. We’re both scared of that. And for what it is worth, I would rather love you forever than have you for a while. I will fall in love with you again. And it’ll most certainly look different next time too.

[writingtakesspace]

(2020-09-30, 20.12) Yesterday you said I didn't need to fall for you again, and I chuckled because I remembered this post, the fact that last week I bought your ring and the week before that we signed papers to be an extra family for a kid. Today, you're putting up all the Halloween decorations and I'm in a shitty moody, but listening to you running around the apartment singing along to the silly emo songs makes me calm and filled with joy. Despite your proclimation I don't need to fall in love with you again and the fact that I started this thread thinking I only ever would fall for you three times, I hope and believe this this is surely not the last time because I think, for love to continue, you have to keep falling in love, with every new you and every new me as we grow as people.

[writingtakesspace]

2017-09-11, 23.00

I fell in love with you three times.

The first time, it wasn’t romantic love, it was platonic, but I feel it necessary enough, and specific enough, that I want to mention it anyway. It was fall, the nights were long and the evenings dark. You sat in my house, on my couch, there was a fire, we had candles and you talked about a book you wanted to write. It was nothing special really, except for the fact that we’d never done it before. The whole sleeping over, the whole being friends-thing. We’d just started out really, despite the fact that we’d “known” each other for a couple of years already. I fell in love with you then because you had an enthusiasm for creating, for telling stories and you saw nothing weird in sharing those with me. Like I could be in on the secret, even if there wasn’t anything really secret about it. Just ideas, thrown around, and I told you about mine. The difference between you and everybody else was that we had an exchange, something to gain from each other, something to be enthusiastic in return. And I fell in love with you, platonic and fast, because I felt I’d find someone who would always feel like home.

The second time, was the first time I told you that I did love you. At least, that’s what I think, because I cannot recall exactly, but this is how I remembered it. It was in the stairwell outside of your parent’s apartment, I was on my way home, we’d said goodbye and I was already walking away, my back to you at the door as you closed it. I don’t know who said it first, I don’t know if I responded or if you responded to me but both of us said it. Echoing, and I was walking to the bus. Simple. Just like that. Like it was something we’d said a million times like we’d never thought we meant anything less. If that wasn’t love, I don’t know what was, but it felt different from the time when I’d just felt it by myself; now it was shared, known, and it was distinct.

The third time, was the same week I left. Days before. I was once again leaving, but this time from what was now your apartment. I don’t even remember what day it was or why I had been there because I was at yours so many times in those final weeks, but I do remember that you hugged me in the door, just like usual. I don’t think we ever leave without a hug. What you did though, was kiss my temple just before letting go. This was not even the first time, it was the second time. You’d done the same just a few days before, or the week before, or whenever it was, and the first time I had just been almost…. confused? Because although we are very open with each other, outspoken and physical, we there’s not usually any sort of kisses in our repertoire. But you kissed me then, again, a second time, on my temple, and I looked at you, wonder in my eyes, looking for something, and it wasn’t there when you looked back. I didn’t think much of it, then, and I let it be, said goodbye and left. As you can tell, I didn’t understand it then, that I’d fallen in love with you again. But I know now, and I’m not really sure, but I think maybe you do too.

So, there it is. I’ve fallen for you these three times, and if I know myself, I’ll probably fall for you many more times over.

[writingtakesspace]

(18-04-06, 19.57)

It is funny, that I have now fallen in love with you four times. I don't think it's platonic now, but I am not sure how well it is doing wither of us. What felt natural before now feels uncertain, like we're having a stand-off where we don't know what we're up against. You and me? You versus me? It's not easy, and it kind of hurts sometimes, but I have fallen in love with you again. I realised when you texted that you lov me after saying good night, and my stomach flipped. It hasn't done that before. You didn't mean anything new by it, surely, but I felt like it meant something new to me. It scares me. I don't want t rush. I am a rational person and I can see that things like this tend to blow over. I don't want to further this and then realise I was misstaken, or that I'll change my mind, or dive in just to realise you're not diving with me. I don't want to be where I have been, and I'm frightened that if I try it, we're doomed. Not just romantically but platonically. We're both scared of that. And for what it is worth, I would rather love you forever than have you for a while. I will fall in love with you again. And it'll most certainly look different next time too.

[writingtakesspace]

2017-09-14

When I cry at night, it is words tumbling down. I do not shed tears because I have found an outlet more respectable than that, an outlet more creative than that, an outlet of which I can base my reactions to my feelings on because I describe them rather than rid myself of them.

[writingtakesspace]

2017-09-11, 23.00

I fell in love with you three times.

The first time, it wasn’t romantic love, it was platonic, but I feel it necessary enough, and specific enough, that I want to mention it anyway. It was fall, the nights were long and the evenings dark. You sat in my house, on my couch, there was a fire, we had candles and you talked about a book you wanted to write. It was nothing special really, except for the fact that we’d never done it before. The whole sleeping over, the whole being friends-thing. We’d just started out really, despite the fact that we’d “known” each other for a couple of years already. I fell in love with you then because you had an enthusiasm for creating, for telling stories and you saw nothing weird in sharing those with me. Like I could be in on the secret, even if there wasn’t anything really secret about it. Just ideas, thrown around, and I told you about mine. The difference between you and everybody else was that we had an exchange, something to gain from each other, something to be enthusiastic in return. And I fell in love with you, platonic and fast, because I felt I’d find someone who would always feel like home.

The second time, was the first time I told you that I did love you. At least, that’s what I think, because I cannot recall exactly, but this is how I remembered it. It was in the stairwell outside of your parent’s apartment, I was on my way home, we’d said goodbye and I was already walking away, my back to you at the door as you closed it. I don’t know who said it first, I don’t know if I responded or if you responded to me but both of us said it. Echoing, and I was walking to the bus. Simple. Just like that. Like it was something we’d said a million times like we’d never thought we meant anything less. If that wasn’t love, I don’t know what was, but it felt different from the time when I’d just felt it by myself; now it was shared, known, and it was distinct.

The third time, was the same week I left. Days before. I was once again leaving, but this time from what was now your apartment. I don’t even remember what day it was or why I had been there because I was at yours so many times in those final weeks, but I do remember that you hugged me in the door, just like usual. I don’t think we ever leave without a hug. What you did though, was kiss my temple just before letting go. This was not even the first time, it was the second time. You’d done the same just a few days before, or the week before, or whenever it was, and the first time I had just been almost…. confused? Because although we are very open with each other, outspoken and physical, we there’s not usually any sort of kisses in our repertoire. But you kissed me then, again, a second time, on my temple, and I looked at you, wonder in my eyes, looking for something, and it wasn’t there when you looked back. I didn’t think much of it, then, and I let it be, said goodbye and left. As you can tell, I didn’t understand it then, that I’d fallen in love with you again. But I know now, and I’m not really sure, but I think maybe you do too.

So, there it is. I’ve fallen for you these three times, and if I know myself, I’ll probably fall for you many more times over.

[writingtakesspace]

2017-09-11, 21.00

I was eleven years old, and my hairdresser had finished beauty school the same year. I sat in her chair, and I told her something along the lines of “this is what I want”, showing the length with my right hand, that I had stuck out from underneath the tent she’d fastened around my neck. I looked at her in the mirror, resolute, but she looked at my mum who was standing in the doorway. I didn’t in that moment feel patronized by this, because she was my mum after all and a friend of mine had started crying a few weeks earlier because her hear dresser had chopped of seven centimeters rather than four, so on some level I understood that other people had so much more attachment to their hair. I just wanted it to look cool. My mum threw her hands up in the air as if my hair dresser was pointing a gun at her rather than just a stare.

“It’s her hair,” she said, giving me all I ever needed. A choice, the choice. My hair dresser, in her early twenties, chopped my hair off. She didn’t even cut enough.

I met my nowadays best friend when I was about sixteen. She was the coolest fucking person I’d ever met, she always wore clothes that stood out; Lolita dresses, pleated skirts, graphic leggings, unnaturally coloured wigs. She used makeup like other people used glasses like she needed it. At some point, she coloured her real hair in wild colours and I, who was basically just watching her from afar back then, was stunned. That was a possibility? You could really actually have pink hair? I had had pretty much every colour that you found in a normal supermarket up until that point, and despite the fact that I felt good as an extreme ginger, I couldn’t get the thought of having more. It didn’t take me a long time to find a place of which sold semi-permanent hair colours and I asked my mother to dye my double-bleached hair for me. She agreed. The end result left me with purple, blue and pink hair, and I’ve only gone back to a natural once since.

I was twenty. It was new years eve and I had asked my mum to freshen up my haircut. Earlier that year, I had cut my hair off again, from long to a “boy’s cut”, now violet and old pink. My boyfriend of three years and I were in the absolute last sprint since he’d moved away. I wanted new. Fresh.

Mum asked, “Have you decided what to do with your hair?”

I nodded. “I’ll go with a buzz cut,” I said. “Off with it all.” She nodded back, but I could see on her face that something about it bothered her. She’s an unconventional woman, she’s worn her hair short and interesting for almost as long as I can remember, but something about me not really having any gave her pause.

“Can we at least do it in sections?”

In case I’d change my mind. Like I’d ever changed my mind about my hair before. Like this was anywhere different from anything else I’d done with it. I let her take it in sections, cutting it bluntly with scissors first, then buzz the sides that were already short. She was going to start on the top, she held up.

“Are you sure?”

And I just looked at her and said, “Mom, it is my hair.”

[writingtakesspace]

2017-09-05

“When they make a movie about your life, this is the part where everyone in the saloon is going to clasp a hand over their mouths and tears will glaze their eyes and everyone will hold their collective breath as you pick yourself up,” I say. You look to me, your eyes aren't just glazed but they’re pouring and you snivel like you’re two weeks into a really bad cold but you give me a thing I hadn’t thought I’d see in months. A tiny, tiny, little smile because you know that I am right. That you’ll dust yourself off and that you’ll get back in the game, not immediately, not in the next hour, but eventually. When you’ve learned how to deal with this, pain and memories and love and the lack of something to tie them all together. You know I’m right so you give yourself permission to smile and when you try to stand up, I let go of you, I move away and I raise my hands in the air. You look at me like I’m mad and all I say is, “So that the movie doesn’t lie.”

[writingtakesspace]

2017-08-30

There are two things you quickly learn when you’re becoming a surfer: the first is that water is not soft, it is not trickles over your toes or drops running down your spine, no, water, the ocean, is as though as mountain that has learned how to move; and the second is that you cannot fear crashing into it. You have to let the waves catch you, even if it means feeling like you’ve been beaten up by your high school bullies, you have to let the water pound into your skin and you have to let it happen over and over and over until you can’t wake up in the morning without smelling the fishy tang of rotting seaweed. You have to be relaxed by it, you have to take the sight of a massive wave into your heart and believe that you will make it, this time you’ll make it, or else you won’t. If you fight it, it will hear you and it will scream back to you that you are stupid, that it will do whatever it well pleases and you will find yourself on all fours in scaring sand, tasting luke warm salt water and cough sand for a month. Inevitably, you will find yourself there even if you do accept the water as it truly is; ruthless. You will find yourself there over and over, and the only reason you can call yourself a true and proper surfer is because you refuse to listen, you get back up, you kick the water in the chins and say, “I’m not giving up today.”