good advice

Don't let yourself be so afraid you're starting to fear fear itself. Love and hurt come hand in hand and so does happiness and sadness!

My friend told me this recently. I'm going to print and tape this onto my fridge so that I remember it everyday.

jump

Jump in with both feet, you tell me. Could you hold my hand when I do it?

Nothing that ever happens, is ever forgotten, even if you can't remember it.

- Oliver Sacks

someone like you

I wanted to hold on to you forever that night. I don't know why, but I thought that maybe you would let me in on your secret - how you could open your mouth so honestly and let your laughter ring through the restaurant while people turned to look at you, sharp elbows on the tablecloth and unapologetic red lips curved in a smile. So I let my fingers trace through your hair, and stared at the slivers of yellow crescent moons from the rotating lights in the room wavering on your irises before you blinked them away, hoping for something to come over me as well, so I could just be as open, just as unafraid.

home

About a year ago my friend told me something really important. I was feeling lost, lacking direction in my life and needed a place to anchor onto but regretted it all the same because I thought I was too homebound, paralyzed and not fearless enough to break out of old habits and to try something new. She told me that perhaps "home" wasn't a physical place, that it was more about being confident and knowing who you are, and the people you surrounded yourself with.

When I came back from Japan two summers ago I felt angry and sad and alone, that the home I had here didn't feel like one anymore when everything had stayed the same but I had changed so much. So perhaps home is really about carrying yourself in a way that fits you, and about your friends (the ones who hold your hand in the backseat of a cab, the ones who insist on calling you before you leave on trips, the ones who understand you and just listen). I take comfort in this because I want to travel and meet new people and try new things and to push myself out of my comfort zone, while holding onto something real and solid.

The people here smile like playing music is the only thing they want to do in the world. And the woman on stage - she hasn't experienced any of the things she's singing about, but she sings like she has - like she's you and me and everyone else in the room.

one more time

Could we walk down this street together one last time before I say goodbye? Let's walk around the sharp corner over here and wander past that lonely motorbike parked at the curb, look into that cafe window where we drank each other's tea (and spilled sugar all over the table), and stand on this exact spot underneath the ivy where we first met. I'd like to keep everything just like it is now, if you don't mind, so that I can keep falling in love with you in this memory.

conversations

There were so many things I would have liked to tell you when we sat on those plush leather seats with our shoulders side by side and the heater humming beside our feet. When we walked along those narrow, narrow streets, the bottoms of our shoes making muddy imprints on the pavement - we were here once! before the rain washed them away. When we watched the countryside through our camera lenses and car windows. When the night was ending and the noise subsided and your hand fit so perfectly with mine. I didn't breathe a single a word though, and somehow it was enough.

reconciliation

If you want it to happen - you'll have to carry the whole thing out carefully and quickly without me suspecting a thing.

Maybe you'll talk about the treacherous weather, describe a new recipe you want to try, gossip about your new coworker. I'll nod at all the right places, insert a few sympathetic sighs in between, flash you a reassuring smile before my eyes are back on the road.

Then you'll lock all of the doors, the automatic clicking sound drowned out by the singer on the radio. Remember to keep your face completely neutral, shaking of any body part minimal - any ripple I detect and your plan falls apart.

From your coat pocket you'll produce one of those handy Swiss army knives you swiped when you were a kid, the edge is still sharp. When I'm slowing down to make the next turn - the ball of my foot exerting just the right amount of pressure on the brake - you use all your strength to drive the blade into my right thigh.

I lose control of the car. It happens so quickly that I don't have time to feel anything, but I do turn to you for answers.

You'll quietly take my hands off the wheel. "I'm so sorry," you whisper, because if nothing else, you're polite. And then we'll sail - what a great feeling! - past the intersection, blinking traffic lights and faceless pedestrians, to a place where everything feels right again.

where do we go from here?

So what do we do now?

Now.

Yes, now. Now that I can't read you from across the room - remember when I used to able to do that? I knew every single thing about you. I understood you. And now - why do your hands feel so different?

I don't know. I really don't. I hadn't expected this to happen at all.

I don't know if I can do this yet.

We can. We have to.