Today I went shopping and brought home some flowers, cleaned the apartment, and took out the trash. There are lots of ways to say “I love you” and actions speak louder than words.

It’s 6:15AM and I’m sitting with my partner in the morning, drinking coffee with oat milk and munching on a belgian chocolate waffle. My partner’s identity is a secret; for now we’ll just call him Steve Rogers. This is the best part of my day.

Befriend janitorial staff

– the neurodivergent experience of perceiving secret worlds of cryptic meaning everywhere because people don’t often just fucking say exactly what they mean –

A random thought – AT stands for apprentice teacher, as well as Appalachian Trail. I was focusing a lot of energy on those letters for almost two years as my possible future after college – and by some coincidence manifested another reality into being.

Never turn your back to the classroom.

Re: I don’t like yelling at kids – I’ve decided not to. I’m not fucking doing that. I woke up this morning and remembered that I’m the only white person in a room of like thirty black kids. I’m a grown ass adult. They’re fucking eleven. I did not sign up for this bullshit. It feels like pouring salt all over a slug.

If they can’t sit still and be quiet because they are fucking nine years old, I won’t fucking ask them to do that. They can work with a partner and take up auditory space if they want.

They’re only like seven and I can already feel them starting to dislike me from all of the screaming and also my head hurts.

Not to brag or anything but one of my (basically newborn) kids pulled me aside yesterday and gave me a picture she’d drawn and told me I’m “one of her most favorite teachers ever” and says she hates it when I have to yell at people because I seem like a nice person

So – fuck. I’m not doing that anymore. We’re going to figure out another way to do this.

Christ.

I thoroughly despise yelling at kids.

Finding out that one of the worst behaved students in my class doesn’t have a home

Noticing the gap in the front teeth of my favorite girl

Telling my scholars how happy I am that they are here

Standing in the sweltering hot gymnasium and waiting for the bus. In the wrong shoes.

Calling my littlest lady by she/her because that’s what she prefers and I’m allowed to do that because she has support at home

For the student who is new – asking a group of girls to get to know him because he doesn’t have any friends yet, and hearing them say they’re happy to include him

Teaching everyone our very own secret handshake

Kneeling beside a desk to answer a question when a hand reaches into the air for help

And teaching.

For the fist time in my life.

The printer named Leonardo is my arch nemesis.

I can measure how stressful the day has been based on the number of writing utensils in my homeroom partner’s hair.

I teach my very first lesson on my own soon. I receive a hug, unprompted, from one of my students. I wonder if she can tell how nervous I am. She and I connected over ADHD – I told her I have it too, and she looked at me with big wide eyes and said “you too!?” and we talked about how we cope in a world that doesn’t work well for us.

The beads, the braids, the styles in my students’ hair are pleasantly distracting. They’re really into this thing called shadow boxing, which is adorable. With all my heart I wish I could let them just be kids instead of telling them to sit up quietly and straight with their eyes forward and their arms up on the desks.

I love them.

Some nights I will stay three hours late at work to valiantly fight in a vicious battle with a printer named Leonardo for as long as it takes to print 120 thick ass copies of the math lesson packet for tomorrow and then I will collapse into the car in a state of bruised and battered weariness and think, this is my life now, and then I’ll wake up at 5:30AM the next day to do it all over again in the wrong shoes.

But the kids are alright and I love them. So it’s worth it.

On my first night in a new home, it rains. There’s thunder and lighting outside the windows for hours. The floor between the kitchen and the rest of the apartment is flooded.

I have brought with me about a dozen comfy flannels, some blue jeans, a toothbrush and similar, and six totebags full of books. Roughly an eighth of an entire bookshelf is filled with the works of Sir Terry Pratchett.

Also have a healthy sourdough starter, along with a carboy full of mead.

At work, I am decorating my classroom with fake plastic plants. This is all I can find. I also want to add Christmas lights.

My classroom.

“You know – I think you would make an excellent math teacher,” says the Calc I professor in the hallway outside the classroom at community college. Years ago.

The people who’ve just hired me as an apprentice seem to agree.

“At this school, we’re more to these students than just a teacher. Some of these kids, they come here and this is all of the actual love and safety that they will receive in a day. So you aren’t just a teacher. You’re like a second mom. You’re an auntie, an uncle, a father figure, a gaurdian. And you’d better believe that we spoil them here. Some of these kids can really stand to benefit from our love.”

I’m about to preside over a cohort of children who are roughly eleven or twelve years old.

All of them will know more about living in this city than I do.

On my first commute home from work, there are gunshots. It isn’t a good neighborhood, but it’s an excellent school. One of the best in the city. Half of our first cohort of seniors just graduated with full ride scholarships to undergrad.

And I want to help.

Yes.

Lentil soup with garlic bread. Yoga and push ups and crunches on the floor in the study. Music through the speakers. Baking Sourdough bread.

Last night was Yahtzee and chocolate and popcorn and fried pickles and Doctor Who. It’s been good.

Have done what feels like absolutely nothing over the past couple of days. Generally vibing with my partner, whose identity shall remain mysterious at this time. Last night we made grilled cheese sandwiches with basil, mustard, tomato, cheddar, and pepperjack cheese on rosemary bread. There’s also been a lot of red wine.

We are currently reading my old copy of The Princess Bride out loud. Alternating between watching a documentary series on the history of jazz music and rewatching Twin Peaks. This makes me happy.

Also got to visit some alpacas at a “fancy ass tea party” up at the farm. Happy to report that there were cucumber sandwich ingredients.

Had to wake up early for work this morning. There was coffee. I am finding that I like driving through the city on the expressways at sunrise. Walks after dinner listening to music, red raspberries and ice cream from a mug, flavored coffee with sweetened oat milk creamer, time in the shower, and a book to read at night.

I’ve started gardening again.

Pulling weeds for an older gentleman from church who often complains about his knees. He insists that the lily growing in his side garden is purple. I disagree, because it’s obviously pink. We argue back and forth about this for a while. He says his wife would have agreed with me, if she were still with us. She passed on of dimensia a few years ago.

Today I drove up to the farm, met baby chickens, greeted numerous cats, was stung by a bee, got dirt in my eye, and did not die of heatstroke due to the farmer’s attentive worrying. I cleared the weeds from around the blueberries and gooseberries.

Let go of every might have been and live for this moment right now.

Activities today included taking a nap, having a shower, wearing a comfy dress, eating rosemary sourdough with olive oil and salt, and sitting on the back porch looking carefully at a mushroom. Also clover and plantain.

Standing at the end of the pier at the northern end of the lake, near the college, in the company of probably the strongest friendship I’ve ever discovered. We got chicken sandwiches from McDonald’s. She blasted Taylor Swift in the car on the way home. I got red nail polish and she got a graphic t shirt featuring snoopy from the peanuts gang, from Five Below.

The air pollution from the wild fires in Canada blocked out the horizon at twilight. There were ducks. We watched the fireworks.

Another friend gave me sixteen bottles of wine. She’s just moved cities and lost her job in wine making this morning and now she isn’t sure if she’ll be able to make rent. Now I have sixteen bottles of wine, a slight headache, and also a belly that hasn’t been there since I was seventeen, but at least I’m eating again. Send good thoughts to a friend of a friend who’s having a bad day, please.

I think maybe I spent most of last winter entertaining this backwards delusional state of grace where everything made sense because everyone was secretly a little in love with everybody else and nobody was talking about this, especially not out loud. And maybe that’s what made it perfect. The not talking about it, the delightfully awful shyness.

Except I’m starting to think that maybe I was wrong. And maybe that’s alright. We move on with our lives.

I’m still grieving the way the stories I told myself made themselves make everything make sense. Back in January, I was trying to make tortellini in the microwave, of all things, only I messed up and got the timing wrong and wasn’t sure what to do and I had the meltdown of the year there in the kitchen and did not end up in the psych ward because when I got there they tried to take away my shoes.

And I was having none of that.

I can still hear my voice asking the security gaurd for my shoes back, please.

And that was probably the last straw, or the lowest moment, because there has to be a lowest moment before recovery starts to happen, before you start kicking your way back up to the surface. I think.

I’ve been listening to the Delta album, by Mumford & Sons. It’s fucking gorgeous, anyhow. Y’all should listen.

Tomorrow I have this intention to get up and drink coffee and make breakfast and go for a walk, in spite of the air pollution that has no business being here on the East coast, and listen to this album on repeat.

It’ll help me feel better.

My family adopted a dog and he’s going to the vet for some heartworm treatment, which could be rough. There’s a gofundme, which is helping financially.

As my dad put it, he is such a good dog.

Tent camping at Buttermilk Falls park in Ithaca, NY.

Hiked the gorge and enjoyed many waterfalls. Also stopped at Hector Falls by the side of the road on the way home for some photography.

Campfire with s’mores.

While visiting Ithaca, visited Liquid State brewery and got macaroni and cheese with green curry French fries and Cole slaw from a food truck called Silo Chicken.

Now we’re home and we’re cooking Italian food. Pasta, sauce, garlic bread, eggplant, meatballs.

Currently reading Arabian Nights and listening to an audiobook called The Story of Earth.

I don’t like smoking because it feels like drowning on dry land.

Still – earlier today I was sitting in the grass under a tree, smoking one of the Newports I confiscated from my sister. Weeks ago.

I spend a lot of time thinking about names.

A “new port.”

New settlement at the edge of the water, where sailors set foot on land for long enough to trade. New town, new city. New place to call home, at least for a while.

Which adjectives would you use to describe some new where, at the very beginning?

How to give a place a name…

Who’s out here doing the naming?

The folks who got there first. Or the folks who *think* they’ve gotten there first, anyway.

Sailors. Cowboys, cow herds. Astronauts. Folks who persist in wandering, who insist on having adventures without ever truly settling down, who aren’t at home most of the time. Folks who return after years at sea and find children who’ve grown so much in the intervening years they no longer recognize their own kin, except maybe the eyes.

Songs like “close your eyes I’ll be here in the morning” or “gentle on my mind” only exist because of this specific kind of person.

“You’re home! Tell me everything“

&

“You’re leaving again. So soon.”

I’m still at home, crossing off the days on a calendar that’s hanging on the wall the way my sister used to do that. Cooking, eating, sleeping, walking. Passing the time.

That’s alright with me.

I’ve never really wanted to leave home.

Wynton Marsalis, Willie Nelson, Norah Jones, Susan Tedeschi.

Leftover Chinese – fried rice with green beans from the freezer and sesame tofu.

Dry red.

Lemon sugar cookie scented candles.

That’s all.

…

given the choice between a dryer and a clothesline, I’ve never really needed the machine.

“Let me know when you get home.”

It’s been about an hour since my friend pulled out of the driveway, headed home after dropping me off from our day of shenanigans.

I still haven’t received a text to confirm that she’s alright, and I’m getting worried. Her destination was ten minutes away.

I send another text as a reminder, then lay in the dark for a while, staring at the ceiling.

I suspect she’s okay. Probably just forgot, got distracted. Maybe her phone is dead.

Still, I’m unsettled. Fifty-five miles an hour down a two lane highway, in the dark, in a car that sometimes creaks at all the wrong moments. And the deer are out in droves.

Imagined scenarios play themselves out, unbidden. None or them are pleasant.

Some time later, the small rectangle of blue light that is my phone’s screen illuminates the dark.

“Dead in a ditch,” she’s announced.

I do not throw my phone across the room.

I call her some rude names, which she deserves, and tell her that I love her before falling asleep.

Probably isn’t necessary. She knows.

Today a friend takes me out for vanilla ice cream in a waffle cone, a walk by the creek in the middle of town, a trip to a second hand store and the acquisition of a green corderoy button down shirt, a walk through the mall, grilled chicken and potato salad at her mom’s house, and Reisling and s’mores around a campfire in the backyard. Kept an eye out for bats. There were several.

Earlier this week there was an adventure out to Watkin’s Glen, for the waterfalls. Later on there was pizza and beer and good company. I got to choose the music in the car on the way home. Almost fell asleep.

I’ve been riding shotgun.

I want to remember this time.

Ian – I’ll miss rolling your cigarettes in the apartment that smelled like cinnamon scented candles over the art gallery on main street, eating chocolate pancakes at 3am, listening to vinyl Pink Floyd and Glass Animals records, losing at chess and arguing against your half baked devil’s advocate stances on philosophical concepts we would have understood better if we’d actually done the reading more often than we did. You are. the worst. and also my time here would not have been the same without you.

Jacob – I’ll miss the way you always spoke up in class with something to say, your eye for the artistic, your political awakeness, your charming conversationalist energy that could consistently be relied upon to light up a room, your desire for a better experience of philosophy, your strategies for how to make that real. One day I’ll be good enough at chess to stand a chance against you.

Emma – there are no words. I miss singing harmony with you. I wish you nothing but the best.

Anthony – I will never look at a scateboard without thinking of you and your yellow backpack. Thanks for drinking coffee and talking about writing with me.

Sky – you actual goddess from the shores of Greece. I love your shoes. Keep on making food that looks amazing. Best of luck to you in law school on the other side of the continental united states, you bad b. You deserve this. Slay, etc..

Moira – the energy you devoted to curating the philosophy club experience these last couple of years opened the door for some truly excellent conversations. Good times. Take your skills with artistic design and leadership and go forth and create something beautiful, please. I believe that you will.

Leila – I would have married you to the love of your life but you wanted our conspiracy theories professor to do that instead. this place will never be the same without your chaotic presence playing Stardew Valley in the department. I will never not think of your kisses when I hear that one specific Eric Clapton song. Until the day that I die. Some of these days I’ll have to hitchhike to long Island for a grilled cheese sandwich. I love you.

Remember that.

pronouns – they/them, more and more often. she/her if you say the words with all the reverence feminine energy deserves. ocational he/him from the cashier at 7-11 is totally understandable on butch days

gender – the one with the flannels (if I get a say)

attachment style – pdf

sexual/romantic orientation – usually accomplished with a map of questionable accuracy and a compass that doesn’t always point north

type – emotionally unavailable old friends, mostly

cats or dogs? – do not make me choose

quirks – anything you say in my presence can and will be written down in a fancy little notebook. might later become part of a story. words on the page are easy. the spoken word in the presence of others is usually stuck-in-the-back-of-the-throat complicated, unless it’s a topic of medium philosophical consequence and I’m in a room full of people, in which case I sometimes have Things to Say

style – just now learning how to shop for clothes and get dressed in the morning

neurotype – homeschooled! iykyk

physical affection ok? – trust is earned over time

walks? – heck yeah

dream job – perpetual monarch chrysalis

oh, so you thought trying to burn all of the bridges at once was a Good Idea?

nice going, you absolute nonsense human.

moron.

twat.

thanks so much for the light pollution from the smoke from your fires. Haven’t been able to see the stars in months.

trainwreck.

do you have any idea how frustrating it is. to call and speak with the engineers. to slowly begin the work of rebuilding the connections you decided to throw away on purpose. all at once.

dumbass.

(good thing the engineers in question still remember you helped them with their calc homework in college, or all of this would be so much worse)

anyway. they’re doing their best to rebuild in the aftermath

still might never be the same.

some of those connections were absolutely beautiful connections and now they’re –

well, here, if you haven’t checked in on them a while

you might need a drink of water and somewhere to sit down.

we are in the process of repairing and rebuilding and also it is going to take time. everything takes time.

meanwhile,

let me lay a plank of wood across a creek to make it easier for the message to get across

to both of those lonely ass braincells rattling around inside your skull.

the trees we felled for the purpose of rebuilding might still be standing if you hadn’t wasted some of these perfectly good bridges

you’re lucky that some of these people on the other side of distance between you and them are still willing to let you reach out

(more than willing, actually – absolutely dismayed when they saw smoke from your direction on their own horizons)

please remember that you don’t need to light the entire hecking forest on fire to keep yourself from freezing to death in the winter.

in fairness,

maybe it’s like – that one specific species of pine tree, I think, that can only make new trees in the aftermath of forest fires, because the pinecones containing the seeds only open when the surrounding temperature is hotter than blazes

maybe sometimes you need to do whatever it takes to stop your own blistered feet from carrying you back to the places to which you find yourself returning, over and over again, even when – upon not much reflection at all, really – you don’t actually like them very much.

maybe something new and important rises from the ashes, like a phoenix.

I don’t know.

Just –

Please don’t play with matches, anymore. not here.

_

[okay look when I said gaslight gatekeep girlboss those were not instructions]

–

It’s been almost exactly five years since one conversation and I still remember her name.

Lost one of ours, this year.

He did, too.

& I still remember another, around the beginning of the pandemic.

–

We’re adopting.

This one got abandoned in a parking lot in Texas. Good natured stranger picked him up and carried him home. He’s about one or two years old.

This one has the same white stripe down the middle of his nose. Same shape of the face. The resemblance is uncanny.

They could have been littermates.

So I think what this means is that the dog days aren’t over.

Not for me.

All I’m saying is that nobody will suspect that you’re regularly shoplifting from the arts and crafts supply store across the street from the grocers if you tell all your friends not to tell anyone that you moved to Washington and you work as an undercover agent for the FBI.

Maybe you moved to Texas and you work for NASA.

Maybe you never left, and you can’t see.

It really helps if you invest in a pair of sunglasses, some flannels, temporary tattoos, and a large and very curly wig that is roughly the same color as your eyebrows.

Why run away to the woods with a bag of rice when you could just grow a beard and change the spelling of your name?

To be fair, the woods are lovely.

Shout out to whoever is out here vandalizing the backs of the buildings next to the funeral home on main street in town with the graffitied letters of my grandfather’s name, in cursive loops of white spray paint.

What a strange true actual coincidence.

May the forth be with you.

If I ever happen to find myself in need a pseudonym, I might could name myself after him.

cried writing this.

To all of the children who’ll never exist

I think if I could leave you with anything, it would be this.

A true knight doesn’t need chainmail, a gambison, plate armor.

You will not require a sword.

Put away the leather.

Quit checking your hair, your skin, your eyes in the mirror. You look fine.

Can’t take them with you, anyway, not where you’re going.

the truth is

I think any knight worth his salt could march comfortably into the woods in a favorite old hoodie and faded blue jeans, the best good shoes with the worn out laces, finger guns, and all of the fortitude necessary to muster a smile.

If this reaches you, somewhere in the multiverse – across space and time and every tangled up alternative sequence of events, because Quantum –

Go forth.

Please have all the best adventures. I’ll still be there, when you come back. Stop home once and a while and tell me everything.

You will never be lost, not really, so long as you can still remember how to find your way back.

Yours, always.

“losing him was blue like id never known/missing him was dark grey all alone/forgetting him was like trying to know somebody you’d never met/but loving him was red….”

– TS

sunglasses!!!

the infamous grey Sebby jacket

ramen noodles with mushrooms

a souvenir from the grippy sock vacation which Definitely Happened.

The red wristband means allergies.

If it’s a gluten allergy, that would make me celiac.

As opposed to unceli – ack.

Sorry.

“Would rather die than give up the foods.”

Cowboy hat.

“Howdy, partner.“

SAND POINT SUB STATION call if you need a deputy. Alternatively you could just call a cab.

Lilac.

(Lack of lye?

For soap making!

Probably.)

It’s 5:30AM and I can’t sleep.

I’ve been listening to an audiobook and crocheting granny squares, twining interesting patterns from a random assortment of yarns. Might could sew them together into a tote bag situation, later on. I’m not sure yet.

Picked up the DVD sets of both seasons of a television show called Twin Peaks, over at the library.

(who killed Laura Palmer?)

Haven’t been writing much. Haven’t been speaking much, either. Without thinking about it, I give up my voice in exchange for something different. I experiment with other ways of communicating, other ways of being perceived.

For this round, I put down the pencils and the notebooks and the keyboards. More and more often I picked up a camera, instead.

Choose your weapon?

No, that’s not it.

Name the tools of your craft.

Which craft?

Witchcraft.

You know –

one of these days, I might actually learn how to spell.

“If I die young, bury me in satin

lay me down on a bed of roses

sink me in the river at dawn

send me away with the words of a love song

the sharp knife of a short life, well

I’ve had just enough time…”

One for sorrow

Two for mirth

Three for a wedding

Four for a birth

Five for silver

Six for gold

Seven for a secret, never to be told

“Wear them anyway.“

“who will save your sole, mate?”

…do I have a right to shoes?

“Wish I had a yellow jacket.”

“Wait in the car while I shop for groceries.”

The seats were fake leather.

Your feet didn’t reach the pedals, in the driver’s seat. Your legs were too short, back then.

While you’re waiting in the car for your mother to get back from shopping for the groceries, you have a couple of options.

Stare out the window and look at the brands of the cars, the names of the stores around the plaza. Parking lot observations – report back on what you see.

Read a book – from the children’s section of your local library, from a bookstore.

Listen to music on the MP3 player, the collection of music that matches the collection of CD’s.

Write in a diary – a diary that has a combination lock, so that nobody else can read it. Ever. Years later you’ll still remember that combination because it was yours. Not for anyone else.

You’ll start writing in journals without locks, eventually.

Your acquaintances will become characters in a story – a mostly true story.

Make believe.

Sometimes small details change, for the sake of anonymity.

Reading though the pages, years later, you’re not sure if you should believe your own memories or the things you saw fit to write down at the time.

You can’t listen to the radio while you’re waiting in the car because mom took the car keys with her “so you couldn’t drive away and leave her there.”

This also means that there is no air conditioning, even in the summer.

Sometimes she drove home with the windows down.

Never on the expressway.

Wouldn’t want to lose those receipts, my guy. Proof of integrity, or some such thing.

We didn’t have a TV at home.

There was a radio.

You knew all of the the FM radio stations where you could tune in without static.

Amd then – when they took y’alls measurements, for the dresses you wore at her wedding.

–

“Don’t write that number down!”

–

“heads Carolina, tails California…” 🍃

Character development.

“Tell me all your thoughts on God
‘Cause I’d really like to meet her
And ask her why we’re who we are…”

~ Counting Blue Cars, Dishwalla

What was that?

“Thou shalt knot steel?”

Perfect, thank you –

If you love her, let her go.

If she loves you back, she may or may not eventually call you out of the blue and ask you for a cheeseburger with french fries and a ride home from the ER, sleep on your couch for a couple of nights, use your stove to make ramen noodles and quesedillas, borrow your car to go pick up a buffalo chicken pizza with country sweet sauce from main street in town, ask your roommate for a ride to the store and then turn up at your trailer park with comfortable new button down shirts, phone charging chords, mud boots in your exact size, a sketchbook decorated with paper flowers, eyeliner, nail polish, chocolate ice cream, easter eggs, clean towels, bandanas for your hair, some interesting new vocabulary words, a truly amazing amount of tolerance for the hillbillies with whom you currently reside, and a solemn promise to fight anyone who doesn’t appreciate you properly.

“No dead sisters.”

Pinky swear.

Echos of some things we used to say when we sat in a circle in the various classrooms at the Honors House, just across the street from community college.

“Curiosity killed the cat,

Satisfaction brought it back.”

“Cats have nine lives.”

“Stay curious.”

First read it in a book of Nursery Rhymes – Old Mother Goose, possibly? A copy of which is most likely still on the bookshelf, back at the house.

“You’re trying to kidnap what I’ve rightfully stolen”

&

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

At home – there was astrology, astronomy, tarot, there was the gem & mineral show, there was a renaissance festival (that was the summer I had a fever of 104° and a badly infected eye and I didn’t want to eat anything other than apples and cheese for weeks at a time, I was fifteen) there was a cottage by a lake, there were kayaks, there was Tolkien and Arthurian Legend and the Harry Potter books and movies, there was a trilogy called His Dark Materials, there was everything Marvel, there was A Series of Unfortunate Events and Anne of Green Gables, there was The Daring Book for Girls, there were markers and crayons and pencils and stacks of blank white 8.5″ x 11″ printer paper for doodling, there was a YouTuber called Vi Hart, there was a radio (100.5 FM, 101.3 FM, 93.3 FM), there was A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle, there was a library and a playground, there were years of guitar lessons, there were walks by the Erie canal, there were visits to Lake Ontario and the yinyard at Seneca Lake, there was a map of the Finger Lakes on the wall in the kitchen, there were stacks of CDs (Alison Krauss) and later there was an MP3 player (John Hiatt, Mary Chapin Carpenter) there was a movie about geese called Fly Away Home, there was the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Shrek, It’s A Wonderful Life, Scrooge. There were library books by Stephen King, Dean Koontz. The Princess Bride. Bicycles. There were christmas trees. There was a music festival in Trumansburg.

There were pretty rocks in the dirt road across from the house, there was “You Look Like Your Mother” over and over again until I went to a salon for the first time and cut off all my hair so that everyone would stop saying that to me, there were grandparents in a nursing home that smelled like ammonia, there was a bird feeder and binoculars and there was a book about how to identify the birds, there was a park with magnolias and lilacs and steep hills and there was a reservoir.

There was a public market, and once a year there would be a free concert series – band on the bricks, I think it was called. Crowded.

Sometimes we brought folding chairs.

This is the first day of spring, according to the calendars. I went outside to check and see if this seems right – it does.

Walked along the beach at Hemlock Lake & drank the closest thing I can find to Apfelschorle on this side of the Atlantic.

Appreciated the sound of waves crashing on the shore. Found a place to sit for a while and listen. Skipped rocks. Collected driftwood – as evidence for my future self that I was actually here and not dreaming.

In this weather, at this time of the day, at this time of year, I feel safe walking alone. This is a safe place to cry where nobody will hear me. There’s nothing to smoke to explain away the redness in my eyes. That’s okay.

I don’t want to try to explain why I’m crying. The easy thing, the half-honest thing, would be to blame it on whichever personality and their assorted bag of skin and bones happens to seem interesting at this time.

I think it’s something else.

Sitting in the car for a minute.

Will drive home soon, listen to the radio.

🍃

There’s this exchange between two characters that I’ve been thinking about a lot, recently. Can’t remember where it’s from –

“HOW DO YOU LOSE A WOMAN!!??“

“You forget to cherish her.”

Where do you stand on <controversial issue>?

I stand in front of the mirror on the rag rug in the room upstairs. I stand on the crumbled sidewalk with the daffodils and broken glass. I stand on a trail in the woods. I stand on a bridge. I stand at the window. I stand in the back yard and look up at the sky. I stand at the edge of the lake in the rain. I stand at the railing of the Gazebo and look down at the fish.

I’ll stand with you, if you want.

Sacrifice aversion. Take everything literally.

Where do you stand, Mx?

Enough mischief, bubba.

Don’t forget to breathe.

A good day for cooking with whatever is in the pantry at home.

She’s not your dad, she just listens to you when you talk and still remembers the stories you told her about the books you checked out of the library in your parents’ hometown, the books you read cover to cover when you were *probably* old enough to be reading those.

And then she promptly went and read all the same books, because she wanted you to think she was cool.

Sushi for dinner, followed by chocolate ice cream.

Wearing a caribeaner on the belt loop of my blue jeans, so as not to lose my keys.

I need a haircut.

Went back to the old Waldorf homeschooling cooperative situation, to watch children performing in a talent show. A young girl plays guitar and sings into a microphone, on stage –

“where have all the flowers gone, flowers gone, flowers gone…“

and, incidentally –

“where have all the husbands gone…“

This strikes me as an excellent question.

Spaghetti with tomato sauce and parmesan, for dinner. Snacking on pretzels.

I am comforted by an unexpected phone call from a college friend.

We discuss recipes for various pasta dishes, we talk about spoilers for an anime we both enjoy (My Hero Academia), we remember some of the moments we shared with our philosophy professors that made us laugh – like that time she was camped out in the philosophy department playing a video game called Stardew Valley and the chairman walked in and immediately had so many questions, many of which he ultimately decided not to ask, I think.

It’s good to hear her voice.

At this point, I am mostly just checking in on people to make sure they’re still alive.

• Bookshelves
• Spice cupboards
• Song lyrics
• Graveyard tombstones
• High school yearbooks
• Old diary entries
• Genealogy database

–

Yes I will be the strange little adopted stray cat nobody asked for – the quiet skittish one who doesn’t like strangers but eventually puts her trust in the ones who put in the most effort

Yes I will sneak into your house without knocking first and use the kitchen to make bread

Yes I’ll share my favorite shows

Yes I will sit beside you and play video games while you play an entirely different video game like two feet away from me and yes we can share a bag of candy and you can have the variety with coconuts and almonds and I’ll take the kind with chocolate and peanut butter and it works out

Yes I will go swimming in the nearest available body of water even when the water is freezing yes we can skip rocks

Yes I will lay outside on a blanket and look up at the stars, yes there will be campfire smoke

Yes we can do puzzles and play cards

Yes I will climb trees and walk the trails in the woods

Yes I will help you with your algebra homework, I am better at this than you are because you keep getting distracted by the shapes of the letters, you dumbass

Yes I will listen to a podcast or an audiobook or the same album over and over again until we know all the words and yes we can doodle in the margins of a notebook

Yes you can borrow my books and look at the pictures

Yes.

You are not the only person who has ever had a meltdown in a café when their dog dies and nobody is sure how to honor the dead and there are no words to talk about it.

You are not the only person who stopped speaking and slammed doors and threw tantrums and pointed fingers when life got to be too much.

You are not the only person who needed to escape, when nothing felt safe.

You are not the only one.

when I’m upset, I probably need to take a shower, eat a snack, drink water, and step outside in the quiet and stillness for a moment to breathe. look up at the stars.

make soup, make bread.

I may also need a distraction – something to do with my hands. I crochet a ball of yarn into a flat square, then unravel again.

I need to walk in solitude several times a walk.

it’s helpful to leave home for long enough to drive into town – sing along to the radio, park behind the funeral home. I often pick up snacks at the convenience store.

when I can’t sleep, I turn on an audiobook or a podcast, light a candle, fold laundry, play a video game, read a book.

when I’m upset, I need to remember to do these things.

What are you afraid of?

I am not afraid of dogs, though I have been bitten by dogs, in my lifetime. I still have the scars, although they are fading. No, I will not show you. No, I will not tell you which dogs.

I am not afraid of cold water. I’ll jump into cold water, feet first.

I’m a little afraid of being trapped under the ice.

I am not afraid of mononucleosis, nor am I afraid of lyme disease.

I am not afraid of being burned and stung by bleach, by poison ivy, by nettles, by hot wax, by mosquitoes. I am not afraid of smoke in my lungs. I’m not afraid of mice, or rats. I am not afraid of mud or ice between my toes.

I am not afraid of growth, or of fading away to nothing, of not quite fitting into my clothes.

I am not afraid of being hungry, or thirsty.

I am not afraid of pain.

I’m not afraid of blood. I have bled every month since I was eleven. Heavily. In the early years, there was no pain medication, because pain medication was Bad For You.

I am not afraid of being perceived, of being seen, of being known.

I am not afraid of men. Men are easy to tame.

I am not afraid of women. Women are brilliant.

I’m not afraid of children. Children are honest, even when they “don’t get it.”

I’m not afraid of anyone.

I’m not afraid to grow old, to lose my sight, my hearing, my teeth, or my bones. I am not afraid to wrinkle. I am not afraid to be buried. I am not afraid to burn.

I am not afraid of dying, of going to sleep for the last time.

I’m not afraid of carrying a child.

I’m not afraid of giving birth.

I’m not afraid of mirrors.

And I’m not afraid of you.

“What’s up?” he asks.

He always asks this.

I glance up, out of habit.

I can see the stars.

Unraveling.

(1) Where is all this shame coming from

(2) How do I make it stop

Her: Do you find yourself judging yourself often?

Me: Yes.

Her: There’s this thing called radical acceptance. You should try it sometime. It helps.

~

Her: do you have any friends?

~

I tell her their names.

~

Her: would you like anything?

At this point, I have not eaten enough food in days.

Me: I would like a milkshake.

Her: chocolate or vanilla?

Me: vanilla, please.

~

Me: how are you?

Her: I find myself missing my own darkness. I don’t think I realized everything I had.

I’m going to go upstairs and cry for a bit. Please let me know when everyone gets back.

I hope you like your milkshake.

• warm/dry/relatively clean place to live and sleep, during cold weather
• running water, for showers
• full pantry & kitchen
• more or less comfortable clothes
• a way to get laundry done
• functioning vehicle, fuel, mostly safe roads
• trying to learn how to take care of my belongings so that they don’t fall apart any sooner than they need to
• teeth
• ears that can hear – music, the voices of loved ones
• eyes that can see
• options for distraction
• art. music. storytelling.

I’ve been cleaning out my bedroom in the attic. I found a box filled with the journals and composition notebooks in which I have been writing since I was a kid.

There are enough notebooks here to fill several shelves on my bookshelf.

My handwriting has changed a few times over the years. I notice the influence from the handwriting of other people that I used to imitate, the way the shapes of the letters change when I’m distracted, tired, rushing, peaceful, upset.

I don’t always write to preserve memories. I nearly always write to escape.

A predictable side effect of writing to escape is a *mostly* accurate record of several years of my life, occasionally interrupted by notes from classes I’ve taken in high school and college.

I used to read the things that I wrote a long time ago and cringe, feel embarrassed.

I randomly select an old notebook, let the pages fall open.

Still the same voice.

I read letters from my past selves with much less unkind judgement than I used to.

As opposed to sword fighting.

Red – blood. poppies from The Wizard of Oz. small paper flowers, for some reason associated with veterans day. Ruby. Cranberries. Roses. Ginger hair. Courage. Red headed woodpecker. Christmas. Candy cane stripes. Hot sauce. Do not proceed. Pomegranate. Lipstick. Ripe apple skin. Tomato.

Pink – infected skin, like acne. Swelling. Pain. Roses. Blushing face. Salmon. Fingernails, unpainted. Excitement. Shame.

Orange – clementines. Tiger lilies. Tiger stripes. Honey. Bell peppers. Carrots. Monarch butterfly.

Yellow – olive oil. Sunlight in the evening. Melted cheese on a pizza. Spotlight on stage. Dim lamp light in the kitchen before the sunrise. Clouds at sunrise and sunset. Dandelions. Bananas. Bees. Hornets. Beeswax. Moon. Lemon – sour, brightens flavor of any dish. Popcorn butter. Sesame seeds.

Green – leaves on trees in the summer and spring. Grass. Emeralds. The Emerald city, also from The Wizard of Oz. Hazel eyes. Dandelion leaves. Ireland. Plantain. Ivy growing up the side of a brick wall. Snap peas. Peppermint. Unripe apples. Broccoli. Lettuce. Wasabi. Cucumber. Frogs. Mermaids. Nettle burns.

Blue – sky on a clear day in the summer. Lake water, from a distance. Pebbles. Forget me nots (flowers). Blue jays. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. “Bright blue eyes.” Fuzzy mold on dry bread. Dragonfly.

Grey – rocks! Storm clouds. Cold water. Ice. Blade of a sword. Silver. Fading light in winter. Cutlery. Stone statues. Mice. Cats.

Purple – blueberries. itchy wool scarf that belonged to my mother. Amethyst. Iris flowers. Purple deadnettle blossoms. Royalty. Expensive. Snails. Purple cabbage. Red onion.

Brown – chocolate. Dirt. Hair. Coffee. Polished wooden floor. Cats. Some mushrooms. Chocolate oatmeal cake – family specific recipe. Melanin. Dark skin. Dark eyes. Dark hair. Seed pods in winter. Steak seared in a pan. Chestnuts. Earth. Labrador. Pond water. Sourdough bread. Dominant. Knitting needles. Chickpeas. Cinnamon. Nutmeg. Chopped wood, for burning. Toads.

Black – chess pieces (plays second). King James Bible? Robes. Rock & roll music. Leather. Dark. Night, away from the city. Motorcycle. Campfire smoke. All my favorite shirts. Soy sauce.

White – Yarrow. Clean bones. Death. Blank page with blinking curser. Wedding dresses. Onions. Potatoes. Winter. Pearls. Cold. Florescent. Easily stained. “Wash separately from red.” Waterfall. White noise. Ripe apple flesh. Queen Elizabeth.

One way to cope with death is to pretend like the dead do not matter to you, have never mattered to you. One way to cope with the empty space the dead leave in your life is to make yourself believe that you’re relieved that they have gone.

“Ah yes, it’s so much nicer here without a dog who is dying.”

For a fraction of a second, this rings true. Then there is a white-hot flash of remorse.

Loss is part of living. Grief is part of loss. Sometimes grief involves kicking and screaming and hating the world, for a minute.

I suspect that I am thinking this way because the alternative hurts. The alternative is that she did matter, and sometimes things that matter don’t last.

She had the audacity to be born, to live for a while, and then stop being alive when she couldn’t go on living.

She brought you joy and also made you tired. She gave you strength and also demanded strength from you. She kept you company when you needed someone to keep you company and sometimes she also made you want to be alone. She was a source of comfort and also annoyance.

She didn’t need much, not really, but you were her whole entire world.

She could not have gone on existing without you. She was exactly what you needed, way back when. She was more than you could carry on your own. She was so much more than you bargained for, when you agreed to be her caretaker. She was a contract you could not break. She was one of a kind. She never did anything to hurt anyone, not on purpose. She was innocent. Her existence was easy, uncomplicated, straightforward. Hers was not the perfect life it could have been, maybe, but it was mostly a comfortable life, and that was enough.

I have never lived in a house without a dog.

Her body is absent.

My body is numb.

Making people feel like there is something wrong with them and you are the only one who can make them feel whole and safe and comfortable again is far and away one of the easiest ways to make them do whatever you want.

This trick doesn’t work on people who have never in their whole lives felt like anyone else needed them to be anything other than exactly what they are, in order to belong, in order to be welcome, in order to be worth caring about.

Let’s call these people gods, because – even if they do exist, I’ve never met one before.

(Define your terms, as I think we used to say in mathematics.)

Gods are loved when they show up to help you. They are also frequently thrown out along with the trash when they are not on your side.

Who is on your side? Do there have to be sides?

If you’re not your own side, fucking reasses.

I learned this (about gods) from my interpretations of other peoples’ interpretations of stories about the mythologies of people from long ago, and far away. The original storytellers are safely located in space and time such that we can’t actually go and ask them what they think, because they no longer exist. They probably wouldn’t give me a straight answer anyway.

Once you have this kind of power over another living being – once you have pointed out some perceived flaw that needs correcting – you can probably use that power to help them.

You can also use that power to make them help you with the things that you want, which is useful when you’re the kind of person who needs help and can’t/won’t ask for it because needing help is a thing to be ashamed of.

What kinds of things do people want? What do they need help with?

The basics!

People want some combination of things like water, food, company, solitude, sex, drugs, rock & roll, somewhere to become clean, warmth, cold, relief, time alone, laughter, some god damn peace and quiet, to be able to think, to be able to stop thinking, conversations, distractions, focus, kisses, hugs, something to read, something to do with their hands (knitting), distance from things they find revolting, distraction from pain, something beautiful to admire and appreciate, something they don’t like so they can feel better about themselves when they think “ah yes at least I’m not in any way associated with This Kind Of Thing,” secrets exchanged and confided, secrets carried to the grave.

Noticing/remembering small details about people, guessing right and being lucky – that gives you an edge.

If you make a mistake with this power, or if you are careless, even if you are perfect given everything you happen to think you know but you’re wrong anyway because you are human and you can’t know everything

you can absolutely hurt them, and your connections to them, in ways that are beyond difficult or sometimes impossible to repair. And it will be as much your fault for abusing the power they trusted you with as it’ll be their fault for trusting you with that power.

So if we’re going to deal out blame, if that’s on the table now – maybe this is how it works. I don’t know. This is what seems true, to me, right now.

Don’t be careless, and don’t assume you are right, because you might not be.

Pull myself up by my bootstraps?

What bootstraps.

I would rather walk barefoot over the snow. I would rather nurse wounds from a thousand badly infected cuts. I would rather run up a mountain on a badly twisted ankle.

I quite literally did that, once. I was eighteen. Junior varsity track team. It hurt like hell and the pain made me want to explode and I’ve never recovered. Spirituality.

“Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.”

I do have boots! They’re several years old. A little worn out, but they’re comfortable and I love them dearly.

New boots are uncomfortable and stiff and also expensive.

If I’m going to wear any boots at all, you had better believe that I’m going to wear them with style.

Go to sleep, they tell me. You’re not doing well. You’re seeing things that aren’t there. You’re not acting like yourself. This is out of character for you. Just get some rest. You’re rambling. You’re not making any sense.

And the unspoken thing: shut up shut up shut UP...

I haven’t eaten enough food in days, because the shapes and colors and textures bother me. I’m not sleeping much – when I do sleep, I’m crashing sometime around dawn, sleeping until late afternoon.

I miss the sunlight. It’s so cold.

Somehow, today, there’s a burst of energy for cleaning. I’m giving away most of my favorite clothes because I don’t like the colors right now. They smell too much like dirty laundry, and it makes me nauseous, so I wash them in the sink with vinegar and soap. In something like a daze, I separate my clothes into two piles – one pile of clothes to keep, one pile to give away. Right now the pile of things to give away is bigger.

I create a new wardrobe from what’s left. Articles of clothing we’ve collected over time. Black and grey and white, mostly. Sometimes a little navy blue, or cranberry. I still haven’t decided about the dark greens or the dark purples.

This moment feels important. Identity formation situation going on.

There’s an closet in my sister’s room, which has been sitting there unused and empty since she left. I use this space to hang up shirts and jackets, sorted and arranged in order on a spectrum from light to dark.

Always used to share clothes with everyone we knew. Shared with the children of the friends of my parents. Worn in hand me downs. Soft and comfortable, falling apart a little.

My hands and feet are numb and cold. My skin feels dry. My joints feel stiff.

I want to be alone.

You thought you made a mistake, when you helped create a world for another human being.

Maybe you did, but that’s okay.

It’s alright here.

In a drawer in the vanity in the attic of the house there is an old cigar box. It was a gift from a friend of my dad’s, around the time my grandmother died.

In the cigar box, there’s a collection of small tangible items with sentimental value. Things that I borrowed, things that I took without asking, things that were given to me in exchange for something else, things that were lost.

These were the things that I held onto for twenty three and a half years of life on this earth because I couldn’t face the possibility of giving them up. I also couldn’t look and understand what I was seeing.

When you are ready, open the box and look inside and remember what was important.

I remember everything.

“‘I cannot imagine reaching the end of this life and having any regrets, so long as I had been allowed to experience being your adept…’

‘Life is too short and love is too long.‘”

~ Tamsyn Muir, from The Locked Tomb series

🍂

I have a powerful imagination.

inside my head,

I know what’s going to happen before it happens.

I know how another person is going to respond to the things I do and say, before I do or say anything.

I know what other people are thinking and feeling, even if they never tell me… in body language or in stories or in words.

It feels so real, inside my head…

It seems so real that unless I am careful, I don’t even wonder if I might be wrong about things.

I am so sure of myself that I don’t even bother to ask you how you’re feeling, what you’re thinking. I don’t give you a chance to speak for yourself, and so I never have a chance to hear what you would say.

And this would be fine if I actually knew what you were thinking, but I don’t.

Not everybody thinks in the same way that I do, and so unless I listen to the way that you think, I am always going to be missing something.

Since I already know what’s going to happen, and I know it isn’t going to end well, I’ll just… bend space and time and matter around me to make damn sure that a sad future never comes true.

And this would be fine, too, if I could actually see into the future. That would be fucking useful.

Except that I can’t. I can’t know what is going to happen before it does.

I am usually wrong about things, even and especially when they make perfect sense inside my head. The inside of my head is hilariously devoid of context. My perceptions are distorted, and they’re always going to be.

I can’t know what is going to happen before it does.

I know this. Because even when I put everything I have into the abortion of sad endings, they usually happen anyway… even if they don’t happen in the way I expect. Sometimes one sad ending happens precisely because I was trying to stop a different one from coming true.

And so… I cannot read your mind, I cannot predict the future and I cannot predict how you are going to respond to the things I do and say.

And so I missing something, I am always missing something, unless I am able to bring myself to talk to other people. And that’s hard for me to do.

I am learning that I’m not a telepathic precog, but I am learning that the hard way.

For fuck’s sake, stay true to yourself and don’t pretend to be somebody else, because otherwise what is the point.

For fuck’s sake, don’t lie and pretend like you don’t care for somebody when you do. If you lie well enough, there’s a chance they might actually believe you.

And for fuck’s sake, kid, give the people around you a little credit. Let them surprise you with their kindness, especially when you don’t see it coming.

Listen to that feeling, the one that isn’t sure that you’re right to be worried. Listen well. And then go looking for those answers, when you’re ready.

There is so much potential for joy, and laughter, and understanding, and love. And it’s worth the risk of a sad ending to imagine that they might be there, even when you can’t see them.

It’s a Tuesday in September and I hope it’s a good stretch of time.

My husband in Stardew Valley just went out of his way to rescue an injured frog on a rainy day. Now we have an injured frog haven terrarium situation on the floor in our living room.

I realize he isn’t real, he barely exists as a concept, but also – holy mother of god I love that man so much. Courting him was tricky because he rarely gets off his computer and leaves the cozy room in his mother’s basement, but it was worth the wait.

I did have a baby with the aforementioned husband, in the game. Impulsive decision, not a choice I would make in real life.

I then proceeded to run away to Ginger Island for several months – growing a whole field of ancient fruit seeds in the sand, to make into wine, to sell to make money to support my growing family, obviously, and this decision has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that my house back in the valley was starting to feel too crowded and I wanted time to be alone.

Logged off for a while because real life got distracting. Upon logging back into that save, several months later, I discovered a small and helpless (pixelated) child sleeping in a crib in an upstairs room in my house that I’d completely forgotten about.

Nobody should let me anywhere near children. Apparently I’m liable to lose track of the fact that they exist, let alone probably need attention in order to thrive.

In Stardew Valley there is an option to change your mind about having a family. If you’re so inclined, you may visit a witch who lives in the mountains who can help you turn your children into doves and watch them fly away.

There’s a dark and twisted part of my brain that thinks this is one of the most hauntingly beautiful things I’ve ever heard.

–

Meanwhile, in real life, my parents’ dog is dying. Her body is shutting down.

She usually gets up and greets my dad at the door when he comes home. This evening she – well, she couldn’t, because her legs no longer work and she can’t move on her own. She was just laying there on her bed, crying until my dad came over to see her so she didn’t have to keep trying to get up.

She’s had a good life.

My younger sister moved away and took her cat, and now the cat that used to hide with me in my room is enjoying having the whole house to herself, which is lovely for her, but I’m sleeping alone without the familiar weight and warmth of a cat curled up beside my head.

I used to take that for granted, and now it is missing. I can’t remember the last time I felt this angry at the universe. I am bitter, irritable. My chest hurts. The house I’ve grown up in feels unnaturally quiet and still.

I’ve been escaping from conscious awareness of my surroundings, carefully avoiding the present moment. I know this isn’t especially healthy in principle but under the circumstances – maybe it doesn’t have to be. Not now.

Holding onto perspective is important and right now I’m having trouble finding a way.

–

Him: ahhh okay there’s this Very Cool Thing that I’ve been enjoying recently and it’s so fascinating and beautiful and neat and heartbreakingly sad and a little strange but like in the best way possible tbh and god I just need to talk to someone about this for like three hours

Her: hmm? Sorry I wasn’t listening, let’s talk about something else instead

–

Me: ahhh that is a Very Cool Thing! Tell me about it. It’s kind of like that other cool thing you talked about for three hours like, what, two years ago? that I still remember, in detail, because I was fucking paying attention

–

Her: you spend so much time online with The Boys and I just – well, sometimes feel like they’re more important to you than I am

Him: of course you’re important to me! I wish you would understand that

Her: but like I need to be the most important thing

Him: well – if that’s what it takes, then sure. okay. you are

Her: prove it, get offline and spend time with meee, I need you

Him: hey, guys, I’m so sorry, can’t be online tonight, she needs me

The Boys: what, again?! I mean yeah okay to be fair we totally get it but also every time? Smh. We miss you, bud.

Him: I miss you guys, too. I do.

–

Her: I love you for proving to me that I’m important to you

Him: I love you, too

Her: I know

she did not know. she had never known, not really, not with anyone. it was *extremely painful all the time,* the not knowing. it made her feel like her chest was going to explode. this didn’t have anything to do with him. old wound hadn’t healed properly. he did the best he could, but it hurt so much to keep telling her she was loved, and to know that deep down she didn’t believe that was real. like trying to carry water in a bucket with a crack in the side, until his joints ached and his head hurt and the inside of his mouth was dry for lack of anything to drink, until one day

–

Her: it’s me or the video games

Him: fine! I guess it’s the video games

Her: fine

–

[grief & separation]

–

Me: be online in five, see you then

Him: wait, really ?

–

Me: hey, so – you know if it ever comes down to a choice between them and me, I want you to pick them, right? Maybe not like every time, but you know what I mean. You need to have a life outside of any one person. That’s important. Otherwise – eventually, maybe not right away, but someday – you’d start to resent me, and that would make you unhappy, and I don’t want to see you unhappy, I don’t want you to resent me. That would be missing the point. I would so much rather have a good time whenever we have time together than be unhappy but with you all the time. I have my own life, my own world to keep me busy that – no offense – doesn’t have anything to do with you. It hasn’t always been that way, but – look, I’ve been trying to grow.

Him: you have no idea how much it means to me to hear you say that

–

The Boys: *making vaguely gross but satisfying homoerotic noises at one another over the line*

Me: I support this

Him: L… supports this?

The Boys: okay so we like this one

–

💜

I will fight to the edge of the brink and back to protect you from the harshness that never stops whirling inside my head. I’m so frightened of losing this fight.

I’d much rather the harshness under my skin hurt me, instead, because I know exactly how it feels to stand there and take harshness that should not have been directed at me and I don’t want to do that to anyone else.

I don’t know if the harshness on the inside of my head is ever going to go away, not completely. I do my best to soften the blows whenever possible. I try to turn them inwards.

In the long run, I wonder if this might be a mistake.

I wish – not for harshness directed inwards as opposed to outwards, but for the perspective that allows me to call the harshness out on its bullshit when I’m tempted to believe in things that aren’t true.

When the harshness has something important to tell me, because part of me thinks it must be there for a reason – I wish for discernment, for the ability to hear to whatever it’s trying to say and then decide if I think it’s worth believing.

I don’t know if I can do anything at all to protect the versions of me that exist within the minds of other people from this harshness. Trusting that they’re safe is hard for me to do.

This is outside of my control, I think, and I think maybe I need to let that one go more often.

I walk alone over uneven ground, I drink water, I remember to make myself eat and sleep, I get my homework done, I listen to music, I read books, I write it out.

“Once I have a Bachelor’s degree, that means I’m free to go. This scares the everliving daylights out of me.”

I’ve been so overwhelmed about this chapter ending that I haven’t stopped to think about what happens next.

What does life look like, after I get through the end of this chapter? What do I want my life to look like?

I want time to write. I want time to write that doesn’t feel like stolen time, time that I *should* have been be spending on other things. I want to go out into the world and notice everything as hard as possible, remember everything I’ve ever noticed, remember every important thing that anyone has ever said to me, and everything they’ve ever written down. And then I want to go home and write about it.

I want time to read. I’ve been steadily collecting books and book recommendations for years. I want to wake up in the morning and drink water and sit by a window and escape into a book, to stare at small lines of text on a page and let that trick my imagination into half-believing in things that may or may not be real, let that make me feel something. Same could be said for games, and shows, and movies, and any other medium for exchanging stories.

I want to go for walks, long walks on the pavement in the city or down by the water or way back on a network of trails in the woods. Alone or with company.

I want to stay connected to people that I like; I want to spend time listening to them talk about the things they like to think about. I want to share food, exchange stories and music, lay on the floor and stare at the ceiling and talk about anything for hours. Forehead kisses, from a select few. Comfortably shared silence, collectively noticing other things that are cool. Company. Doesn’t even have to be the human kind. Sometimes I want to be held, for a moment.

I feel a nagging pressure to find a way to support myself, in case I ever need to be able to do that. I want to be able to afford to eat, to have somewhere safe to sleep, to have access to healthcare and to transportation, cell service… without worrying.

I want to rest when I’m tired, make neat things whenever I want to do that, work on the things that need doing whenever I have the energy to work.

Homemade bread. Privacy. A garden? Time spent in the woods, or swimming in the water. Art, games, books, stories. Soft clothes and comfy blankets. Hot showers. Music.

There are probably other things, but this’ll do for right now.

Not me sitting up in bed at 3:30 in the morning because a friend sent me an unsettlingly trippy/psychedelic video about consciousness of consciousness of consciousness etc., stretching on and on and on forever – as it relates to a theory from philosophy of mind, which made me think of a concept

from Terry Pratchett

in Witches Abroad

(paraphrased)

Never get between two mirrors, as you might lose track of what’s real and what’s reflection, and get lost trying to find yourself. The protagonist’s trick was knowing full well she didn’t need to go looking for herself because she was right fucking there. Always had been. The whole time.

Obviously.