An evolution

I have always said that writing is a way to remember all the things we swear we’d never forget, and inevitably do. A record of the lows that throb and the joy of a Sunday in the sun, because the memory of the thing eventually outlives the memory, and the thing. What’s down in writing outlives us all. It is good to take stock at how we’ve blossomed out of the things we never thought we’d leave behind.

may 20,

If someone had told me a year ago what this would all look like now, I do not think I would be very surprised. I’ve been making peace with this for a long time- that it is completely possible to know something and simultaneously not know it all at once. There are days when the only way to fall asleep is to pretend it never happened the way it did. There is so much more to this than we know and I am still learning all the ways we are able to let each other down. I wonder if you will find anything in that city that feels the way I did.

I have been getting angry in a way I never thought I could, a burning crack that lives in my throat. I set a place at the table, give it the room it needs. It is sienna, burnt orange, the colour of the desert. I am too busy tending to it to find room for anything else. Some nights, I feel like I’m screaming, even though the room is silent. Does anyone else carry cactus spines on their forearms like this? I am stung and stinging all at the same time.

june 17,

When there is no one left to say the difficult things to, we are left to say them to ourselves. I look at myself harder, pull at strings I pretended were tied up before. I am unraveling, and it is a good thing. I have been walking quietly around the people I love for such a long time that I started believing love always meant giving in, saying yes to pizza even though I don’t like the taste, doing anything to make them stay. I could have saved myself, there is no easy way to shift this blame. I cannot say with any certainty who I believe I would be if anything had gone differently. It feels like I’ve always been on my way to being this woman, about to travel further west than I’ve ever been before.

july 10,

My room is in bloom, and it feels a lot like a reflection of it all. I have flowers from a wedding in the mountains that made me cry and cry hooked up over a graduation card, next to a Polaroid from a night where I felt lit from the inside out. Its all bright and messy and I have never felt more bathed in love than I do now. And it doesn’t make me want to stay. For the first time in a very long time, there is no one in my life that feels like an anchor. Love can push you forward, instead of always holding you back. I lace my fingers through this thought, and I don’t let go.