Struck

The problem was, my heart got so bruised, so broken I had to put my vulnerability on lockdown. Even in the worst of the pain and confusion, I knew I didn't want to keep it that way. And I missed the companionship, so I guarded myself and sought relationships I didn't need to actually invest in. Relationships that were guaranteed dead-ends. 

Much like those serendipitous conversations that strike up with your seat neighbor on an airplane. A brief, beautiful bit of humanity in an interaction that feels so simplified – a kind of ordinary magic. And yet, when the plane lands, you don't exchange information, you might not even know each other's name. As if the agreed-upon course of the context, you exit the plane, walk down the jetway and each join the swirling sea of strangers. No matter how profound it may have felt in the moment, you may never think of the person or the conversation again, even though you carry it with you. 

This era turned out to be exposure therapy, teaching me that not every ending is earth-shattering. But it also brought to the surface a sense of being taken for granted and devalued. And in the last of the string of such relationships, I began to snap out of it. I could see through the facade I'd built for myself, that I'd been choosing supposedly-safe relationships when in reality I ended up getting hurt because they didn't really care about me. And I didn't want to tolerate being disposable anymore – that was the very thing that shook my core in the first place!

When I began to realize the relationship I was in was one where I was merely a stand-in, that's when someone strikingly different crossed my path. Someone rare. And although I try not to let myself entertain the thought, I think it ruined me. It brought me back to what it feels like to not just be a buoy someone clings to for a while. The magic of the airplane seatmate who you were meant to know not just encounter. I was caught by surprise how clear it was; a grounded feeling that I was wary to trust. 

But life had its way as it does... So, I find myself back at a similar yet different place, wondering "Now what do I do?" Only this time I'm not heartbroken, I'm...struck. Struck by the feeling of that reverberating in me, and doubtful that it's something you can simply hunt for a replica of and find. That's not how it works. Maybe for some of us life will only entail brief airplane connections. Having magic you get to hold onto might be the myth of the cinematic happy-ending, granted to some by dumb luck. I'm sort of left waiting to feel differently; to be open to the possibility that special could be more than something I had for a few moments in my life. More than a figment of the imagination to hopelessly long will realize. That I'll even know what it is, should I see it. 

They Won’t Break You

I’ve been accused of being an over-thinker by, like, many people. And they’re not wrong. I’m also a deeply-feeling person who observes and absorbs a lot as I move about in the world. My neurodivergent brain, though frustrating at times, has its gifts too, like super-strength pattern recognition. “Don’t overanalyze it,” I’ve heard countless times in my life. “Sure,” I think, “right.” 

So, I have the simple job of sorting out when my emotions have propelled me into overthinking, versus when I’m processing to make sense out of my experience after the emotions have settled.

Something jarred me emotionally this week and I jumped to immediately thinking “Here we go again, of course! I can’t do this again; I cannot handle this again,” about the inevitable emotions. The strange thing was, the emotions came and went, and my mind resumed the “I can’t, I can’t” scripts, only I didn’t feel like they were true anymore. Now I actually noticed them and they were so clearly just fears. 

It struck me how much more emotionally resilient I felt than I realized I could, yet that the narratives I formed years ago while slogging through the most challenging emotional weight I’ve ever endured, those still tried to protect me from something I don’t actually need protecting from anymore.

I am still a flawed, messy, and wounded human, but I’m certainly proof that therapy works; digging into yourself works. 

And if I had to sum up my most valuable lesson it’s the importance of the practice of sitting with what I feel. There have been many times I thought that what I was feeling would break me, I know now precisely because that’s how it felt. I had to change the story I tell myself to “it feels so heavy” and stop entertaining the thought that I would break. Big waves of emotion still come, you just get better at riding them and keeping your head above water.

Devour It All

My grandma is nearing the end of her [very long] life. We were never especially close, so for me seeing her body slowly dying is strangely humbling and grounding. What I mean is: it gave me some perspective on life, to be watching hers end. It brought some reflection and oddly gave me hope about my own life. If I were to have 60+ more years of it, what would I want that time to be about?

My grandma had always been someone who liked what she liked, wanted what she wanted, and was very put together — things I’ve not easily done in my life thus far. But she’ll also be remembered for being supportive, kind, and loving — things I value and aim my life toward. It stirred something in me, sitting with her while her state is so different than I’ve ever known her, and giving her the love and kindness I can right now. I haven’t even fully put my finger on it, but I left feeling a sort of poignancy. She lived this interesting, at times exciting, and certainly rich life, though not without its heavy burdens. And all of that is hers. 

Maybe what it brought to the surface in me is my philosophy on what life is about and that is two things: our experience and the relationships we have, where we make an impact. Those that grieve are proof of the latter, but so very much unknown is the former. 

My grandpa had left impressions on my life, pleasant and silly little reminders of him to glimmer in the mundane moments – "coffee doesn't taste good unless you spill a little" and the whimsy of defying physics by snagging your belt loop on a door handle. In spite of being madly in love with each other until he died, my grandma went about life so differently, so what reminds me of her is a bit different. She loved sweets, but was unfortunately always under the pressure of being a woman and measuring her choices. At family gatherings, it was always the brownie. She’d shyly have half of one…and always come back for the second half. And so I always think of her when I have a brownie, I say to myself “Eat the whole thing.”

In a way, that’s the lesson I take from her loving what she loved and wanting what she wanted: in life, devour it all. 

It Started in June

The body really does remember what we ourselves forget…

Tuesday, right away and all day I was anxious in this certain, specific way that usually means there’s a pent-up emotion that needs to come out. It’s frankly a bit miserable because I just have to ride it out until it releases. Usually it’s not something that’s in the forefront of my mind, instead a sneak attack of some repeat feeling that’s snowballed. 

I went to bed with it still churning, not letting my mind turn off to sleep. Thoughts of last summer came to mind, first memories that were good, then ways I felt so alone. But then intermixed was this grief from several summers ago. 

I recalled sharply how shaken I was. I co-opted my parents on a North Shore trip for a change of scenery. That night, I did my best to sob quietly on the floor on the mattress from the roll away bed we had to order to the hotel room. I was scared to be alone with such immense pain, it felt like it was swallowing me. 

That grief was so deep it took years to feel some semblance of normalcy. So intense it still reemerges with pieces I haven’t sat with, like the heaviness of that night on that mattress on the floor. So intense because I had trusted someone so much who utterly shocked me. Here and there I’ve been remembering the crazy-making of that time. How not myself I was, trying so hard to make sense of a thing that just wouldn’t make sense. 

A thing that all started in late June, several summers ago. And my body remembered before I could. 

Every Time

Every time I tell myself it's the last time. Every time I feel like I can't survive it again. 

Eventually though, my relentless heart yearns. Somehow it keeps believing that something good is out there for me, even though time and time again, being hopeful only gets me hurt. And each time it makes it harder to continue to hope. 

People will say kind things, like they believe that a good heart won't go to waste...but I don't. Because I have given everything they could want, they'll say, and still toss me aside, let me go, push me away. I find myself more afraid to keep hoping that my heart – that I could be chosen, than I am of the pain of being unwanted. 

Because it's not about not being good enough or believing I'm unlovable. If I'm honest, it seems entirely random. Coincidental. I don't believe in fate or destiny, or things being meant to be. I think we all just collide. And I'm increasingly unsure, each time, if I can keep trying to collide with someone in hopes that maybe they will choose me. 

Any of You was Me

I cannot see you here –
a poor figment of a guardian.
No more present than magic. Or luck.
If you are here, you are a liar and this is a masquerade.
Prayers placed futile on our lives as wishes on coins in a fountain.

If you were there, it just confirms you watched me drown. 

Again and again.
And so there is no "later" that you can come, that I would find relief.
I'm vexed to think when and how you'd choose to lift a finger 

– it must be heavy, such burden of power.
Why should I awe at you, if whether you're here or not, everything is the same.
What love is love that looks on its object's suffering with indifference, unmoved.

Now I have more faith in myself, than I'd ever had in you
because I was always there,
and any of you 

was me.

home again.

Loving and missing. My heart keeps on longing to reunite with your presence. Panging. For your laughter. Hungry for your gaze. The way that being next to you felt. It's like I haven't been home in a long time. Like I'll never be home again.