home (again)

why do I feel like you sold me a ticket to a show you were never gonna put up in the first place

It’s been raining here ever since I landed. The first night, the thunderstorm was so loud - I woke up and walked all the way to the locked door to see if I was imagining it.

I’ve promised myself to not think about work so much. To take back some of the time I’ve already forfeited. But it’s hard to settle down and write at the dining table like I used to- there’s always too many people around and too much noise, and when I feel relaxed, a part of me wants to get in bed and sleep.

I feel sort of happy and stable despite the ebb and flow of how people treat me these days. I can tell I’ve reached that place where I believe in myself more so it’s easier to put what other people think at rest and to call it just that - their unnecessary reactions.

Some part of my heart is broken. I worry about things at home. But I cry easily- I make sense of a small thing when I allow myself to cry and let my body release what it doesn’t need to hold on to, but in some ways, I feel like a newborn child, tender, growing, trusting, and fresh to hurt. I’ve let my old wounds be washed away, I’ve forgiven people and prayed for forgiveness myself. I see myself in so many people I’ve left behind through the course of my twenties, and even though I have the wisdom that they had before me, feeling like them just builds more tenderness in me.

I know how to hold someone now. How to kiss their hurt away. I know how to take care of myself and how to work hard even when I want to be lazy. I see myself in my parents, but I want a different kind of life.

I want to go somewhere where I can try something new. Even if I don’t look too polished or professional, I’d rather use the years when my mind feels supple to do as many new things as possible. I want to stretch my idea of myself and be so much more than I thought I was capable of being. I want to cook and drive well and do the hard yoga classes, and find someone to love who won’t want to leave me. I want to be happy alone and happy with someone. I don’t know if it’s all possible - I just know that I’ll keep trying.

**

For starters, I’ve always known I’ll end up happy and in love. Just like a fish knows it belongs in the ocean, just like paint knows it belongs on a canvas. Since then, life has been a happy accident, bumping into someone or another until I ran into you.

Or that’s what I thought.

I think of the tender way you held me. The texture of your shirt against my cheek. A gentle hug, your hand and your watch cupping my back.

Love is about categories. Why did I put you in the wrong one right at the start? You were supposed to be lumped in with the nice guys with consistency issues and I made the mistake of putting you with the caring guys who did too much for me. Therein lies my mistake.

My brain lies to me. I know it all too well. And I tell my heart it’ll take time to forget you and that wounds heal, even the ones you can’t make sense of, the ones without the answers - of too much love gone missing like my luggage from the plane. my feelings are a yarn of wool, forever tangled and every time we talk I try to decipher a clue that’ll help me move on from this. it doesn’t come easy, the answers all sound like a broken record. I think of you every time it rains and our future together, unsigned, unclaimed - lies in a pile of things at my house.

How can I be sad about losing something that would’ve only been bad for me? I wish this was simpler to feel. I’m trying to flush you out, even while I hold out hope. I’m thinking about trying to connect when you’re pulling away. I’m a fool for mixed signals, I could never tell the traffic lights apart. We were a picture perfect frame until the train got derailed and I started thinking about how I could explain that two people could be in love and not together.

I let the storm of my feeling pass. but even the breeze whispers the same thing all over again. I think of you, and of me, and of us, and all the time we spent together, and I wonder how much time needs to pass before I can enjoy the weather without thinking of you, every single time it rains.