you know this already

You tell me you're afraid of falling in love, that you'll never be able to let someone in completely - and so you won't.

But you're wrong. I know this because I can hear the incredible joy and frustration and warmth in your voice when you talk to her, and when you talk to me about her from the colour of her eyes to the next big decision she has to make in her life. I can feel how your body tenses up when you look at her, and how your arms fit around her body to make sure that it fits with yours. I can see the whole heart you've given her already.

So be honest. Be courageous. And love her utterly, fully, and completely with your entire heart.

this

I don't think about this often, but when I do, I'm struck again about the enormity of it - how the two of us share something that I will think about for the rest of my life. You were there. You held my hand as we sat side by side on the long bus ride, and when they called my name. You were there when it was over too, and told me that it would be okay. But you were probably just as terrified as I was.

We don't know each other anymore. I don't remember your phone number, your birthday, or what your voice sounds like even. I don't know what makes you tick, what you like reading in bed when you can't sleep, or what brand of coffee gets you up in the morning fastest. But we do share this, and it'll be the only thing that will ever connect us.

at least

My bare feet rest on your cool hardwood floors, left cheek flush against the bedsheets, hair a mess. You're leaning back in your chair, chin resting on your hand and glasses pushed back in your thick hair. We're listening to her sing about lonely people in the city, and you explain to me how sad this song makes you feel, eyes bright and fingers fluttering over your face. I turn to lie on my back and listen to your voice go up and down and up again. The both of you talk about humid summer nights that stick to your skin, and our untapped ability to fall in love. I close my eyes and take solace in the fact that at least we have each other in our own city.

giving up

What if it's too difficult? What if I cry?
What if we don't have words to fill the empty spaces anymore?

What if we lose our spark?
What if we lose sight of each other?

What if you're not who I you think are?
What if I'm not who you think I am?

What if you don't make the jump? (and I do?)
What if you jump first?

What if I never let you in?

I'm giving all of them up for you.

I don't want to say this out loud yet, because it's too big, too scary to think about. But I have a good feeling about this.

dancing

we thought we'd never dance again
so scared of second chances
but now there's something happening
you make me want to dance!
you make me want to move!
you make me want to make a new dance up

and you know all the moves
because it's our dance

{Make a new dance up - Hey Ocean!}

Let's go dancing!

that night

A stranger sees our smiling faces illuminated by an eerie white glow as we roll past her - the light's actually from the "we're open" neon sign, the flashing erratic dashboard signals, the screen on my cell phone. Your head lolls on my shoulder as you mumble about the healing powers of french fries, and I push your head back up to prevent you from tumbling down again. I have my other arm outside the car window as we wait for the poor soul working at the drive through to take our order, our laughter fed by jokes only we understand. We all feel something that night, but we can't quite pinpoint what it is.

We will never know how lucky we were.

well the words, well they slip

And this is what I feel every morning when I wake up next to you. I feel it when you let the sun skip across the planes of your face, and when we smother each other in morning breath and kisses and barely coherent mumbling in the few moments before waking. When we listened to frogs exchange friendly conversations in the dark, with the sky above us lit up by a spiderweb of stars. When you laughed over something a good friend had said, and how happy you looked then - mouth open wide and the corners of your eyes all wrinkled up. When you told me you loved me.

Terrified and utterly helpless is what I feel - but also exhilarated, and strangely comfortable with the idea that this could work. That maybe you can take me as I am and I can take you as you are. That I can make the space to fit you in.

things I have to accept

Sometimes, when my finger gets caught between the pages of a book I'm reading, or when there is a gap between words in a conversation, I wonder who you could have been - the colour of your eyes, what your laughter sounds like, how many stitches you've had since you were a kid, what makes you scrunch up your face in disgust, who breaks your heart. And I have to be okay with the fact that these are things I'll never know.

I'd like to see what you see when you look at me.

This is our secret, and no one else's.

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.

July 20, 2009

I found coming back home such a jarring experience, and I don't know what to make of it.

It feels strange to come back to find that everything and everyone has pretty much stayed the same, nestled comfortably in the homes and jobs and relationships they have made themselves, when I have changed so much mentally and that they will never completely understand how I feel. It almost feels like I don't belong here anymore. I talked to my friend tonight who experienced the same feelings, and I know eventually that I will fall back into the old pattern, find a place where I belong. For now though, I feel a little lost and alone.

In Japan I found that I had things in me that I never thought I had: courage and confidence. All the things that people told me before I went were true: I have no sense of direction, cannot read maps, do not know the language, and I am a woman. They told me that I would never be able to make it alone, skeptical and amused looks crossing over their faces as I spoke excitedly about my trip. I somehow made it though: finding my hostels through sometimes cryptic instructions, asking people for help with my basically non-existent Japanese, navigating the main transportation systems in all the cities I went to, being smart, staying safe. Everyday was an adventure.

It was also an experience altogether just being on my own for extended periods of time. It got lonely, that was for sure, and I was made painfully aware of this when I sat alone in restaurants sipping my tea, or lounging around by the side of the street eating a crepe surrounded by high school students. But I met people from all over the world along the way; a few I got to know, some I just said hello to. I went to bed every night feeling exhausted, but excited for the next day. Most importantly though I learned a lot about myself.

On a train ride out to Nara I talked to a friend about my days in high school, where I was angry and "emo" and listened to depressing music and wore ties and spiky bracelets. I don't think I knew who I was, for the longest time. I acquired obsessions along the way, wanting to completely fit into a character that I knew that existed already, trading in old identities for new ones as time went by. I don't think it was until recently that I started to get to know myself, to face the flaws that I hate about myself and to want to change.

I think I found a lot of myself in Japan, and for that I am thankful that I mustered the courage to do it.

feeling, not thinking

Listening to him sing gives me goosebumps. It makes me feel alive. It makes me want to feel things fully without holding back.

I know I have trouble doing that, experiencing things head-on, good or bad. When I'm having fun with my friends sometimes I hold myself back, and remind myself that it'll end eventually. When I get disappointed, I tell myself it really wasn't all that important, and I push it aside. I think that's how I'm able to deal with things like break ups and failure pretty well.

I learned about self-deception, avoidance and acceptance in my psychology seminars, and most things hit home hard. I sat in those classes feeling extremely uncomfortable because I knew a lot of it applied to me directly.

The truth, or whatever version of it, can hurt and completely throw off your previous preconceptions of what your reality is. Maybe that's why people are so stubborn and refuse to let go of what they think is right.

Either way, I hope I can become a person who isn't afraid to feel and to see things clearly.

compassion

I was walking through the subway station the other day when I saw several people standing in front of a few posters. Curious, I stopped and went to see what they were looking at.

These posters had pictures and brief autobiographical descriptions of the heroes of the Holocaust; the people who secretly took in people who were persecuted, those who smuggled them across the border, those who employed these people in their factories so that they would escape the internment camps, spies who worked on the inside, and people who faked documents and birth certificates to save hundreds and thousands of people. Many of them were tortured and killed, but they continued to do these things until the very moment they were arrested and captured.

Reading about these amazing things made my heart feel lighter. But what made me feel even happier was that the people around me were actually taking a moment from their busy lives and from catching that last bus to stop and read the posters. We were just standing there, silently reading the descriptions, marveling at their deeds, taking the heroes' faces in. I found this to be a beautiful thing. I think at that moment, despite our differences in beliefs, whether religious, political, or personal, we all agreed on something, this shared humanity.

Maybe I've found what I believe in and what I want to continue living for. This universal belief in kindness, compassion, dignity, and freedom.

the heart

"...the experience of happiness, [is] the most dangerous, because all the happiness possible increases our thirst and the voice of love makes an emptiness, a solitude, reverberate."

- Francois Mauriac

happiness

When I get into these moods that I can't seem to get out of, I try to remember what makes me happy. And they're simple things really: lying down on the carpet and watching my cat eat, washing the dishes, holding a cup of hot water with honey and lemon in my hands, sitting by the window and people-watching during lunch, a good song, laughing with my friends. Why should I ask for more?

let go

Sometimes I wonder if I'm too hard on people, especially my sister. I wonder if it is my own pride that I can't see her suffering because I dismiss things that really do bother her, that I write off her behaviour as lack of maturity. Maybe I'm the one putting up the walls between us.

She called me to her room and I went begrudgingly, expecting her to whine about something unimportant. But she opened up to me (and this is rare) about what was stressing her out, that she couldn't sleep because she had all this pent up anxiety and worries. So I sat and talked with her for a few hours, told her of my own experiences. How I would lie in my bed for hours at a time worrying about the most trivial things, and how it's hard to believe in myself, too.

I want to be a better sister, one that doesn't judge so much, one that understands her perspective more, one that can see what she's going through even though she's putting up a front so that I can be there for her when she needs it most.

ambivalence

He placed his finger on his lips, and I leaned in.

That was the first time in months I ever felt something, and when I realized, with a sudden force, how lonely I feel.

I've been thinking lately that I tend to sabotage myself, that my avoidant relationship tendencies keep me from moving on and having a connection with someone because I'm scared of being vulnerable, of having these carefully built walls around me get taken down.

believe

Why is it so difficult to believe in ourselves?

I can see potential in people, wonderful things and truths and abilities in people that they don't think they have, but I can't see this in myself.

This may have some merit though. And I try to hang on to the words that people tell me, and I look at what I have accomplished so far in my life, and I try and try and try my hardest to believe.

holding on

For the past few years or so, I've been fortunate enough to have a wide network of friends who I love and care about. We sang to carols while wearing terrible Christmas sweaters, plotted and schemed for months an elaborate murder mystery party, held on to each other as we screamed and flailed together at concerts, talked about silly things late into the night under the sheets, and danced the night away, heavy eye-make up, spilled drinks, confessions and all.

But I can't help but think how impermanent all of this is, and that in the future I'll look back and think to myself, I was happiest then.

I want to hold on to this as much as I can.

when the night is over

When the night is over - when my eyeliner is fading and I'm trying to find my shoes, when the apartment empties itself of coats and purses and half empty beer bottles - I still want to sit here alone in the dark, take off my jewellery, and listen to the humming of the refrigerator, to the music in my head, to the steady beating of my heart.

drunken poet?

Some "poems" a good friend translated for me over text ;)

Flurrry of skirts and hardwiid floor amd toes on cracks and glasses
gclnking tofether

Translation:
Flurry of skirts and hardwood floor
And toes on cracks
Glasses clinking together

(I actually thought it said hardwild at first, which is a kickass
sounding word. Like a crazy new dance!)


Pink nails and flowery skurts and waiting and taxis at the fribt door
pomises when will i see you next

Translation:
Pink nails and flowery skirts
And waiting taxis at the front door
Promises when will I see you next


Tour handa unser my arms and there us the beat again over undr over
ubder and over again

Translation:
Your hands under my arms
There is the beat again
Over under over under
And over again

love songs

Sometimes I wonder if we've become too hard; too resistant to the overtures other people make, brushing them off as inconsequential or if we're feeling particularly cynical, calling them fake and insincere. We want something real, something solid you can hold onto, not these mushy feelings that don't lead anywhere.

But sometimes I like lying on the couch, sipping on hot tea and listening to people sing about their undying love for each other - I'd like to believe that these things exist.

on writing

I've known my friend for years but it's only been the last couple of months that I feel I've gotten to known him more, what's the word for it - completely? I feel like this has a lot to do with how we send each other things that we've written - poetry, stories, and free association mainly.

There's a sort of intimacy in words, in the act of writing that makes sharing and forming friendships easier. In person we hold back, we have walls that we're ready to put up when the other person comes too close; we negotiate boundaries, and offer up things about ourselves that are safe. I feel with writing, at least for myself, that I hold back much less, I lay my words out there bare and ready to be picked at, which is downright frightening. I've "told" him stories that I've only talked about a handful of times with other people - things that I laugh nervously at, fiddling with my hands, eyes cast downward at the table. These barriers are struck down in writing though, and this, I think, is why I love writing.

the dark

He places a finger on my lips, and I lean in - all smoky breath and lingering alcohol and clammy hands climbing up to smooth over collarbones and neck muscles - I try hiding beneath your coat from the cold and then I'm swallowed up by fraying cushions on our salvation army couch by the window, sunlight peering in through half-shut blinds and she's pouring earl grey tea into soup bowls and telling me about her day in drawn-out whispers, long legs tangled up with mine and I close my eyes and breathe in the smell of her shampoo until I blindly reach for your face, stubbornly unshaven and unsmiling, shoulders locked, and you're trying to tell me something important, I know it, but it's too scary so I build them, layer by layer, and then I can open my eyes in the dark again.

growing up

When did we start growing up?

I'm talking to one of my oldest friends, and he is moving into his new apartment next week, 1 year lease and everything. I don't know why but I was struck with feelings of nostalgia, and then, how did we get here? We used to walk home together from school sharing earphones, listening to the bands we loved in the rain, hoods pulled over damp hair and hands stuck in our pockets. Nine years later, and he's looking to get his MBA and I'm here.

Paying rent and the bills, lugging my groceries from the store, coming home to an empty apartment, doing my laundry - all simple things really, but somehow it means a lot. I suppose it's a good thing. A sense of responsibility, of being in charge of yourself and who you are. I just wonder when we finish "growing up", when the uncertainty goes away, and when you feel like you fit into your skin more.

who you are

The air stings my face slightly.
The wind is biting.
The sun shines, but it's warmth cannot keep up with us.
You stand off in the distance.
Wreathed in a glow that seems to emanate from deep inside you.
Blond locks whip around, in disarray and yet every movement, another
act of sheer brilliance.
I want to come close to you.
To whisper in your ear,
"This is who I was before I met you."

~blurs of joy

a deep fog settles in my mind
swallows up these long, long roads
and tree branches that look like spiders
ravens flocking in between them

I turn corners to find you
there
trembling shadow on the ground
all misshapen hands and dark eyes
laughter that sounds secondhand
you blink at me

I brush a lock of hair behind your ear
and I whisper:
"This was who I was before I met you."

find

leaning against metal railings on the street eating ice cream crepes with high school students and drinking tea alone in restaurants oh god are they looking at me funny am i doing something wrong how about i try to say this word with the right accent will you understand me then looking out the window on a moving train and seeing patches of green and brown and mountains whip past me there is so much beauty i can't take it after arriving at the station with a suitcase and poorly written directions where the fuck do i go now oh but look at all the pretty girls with make up and eyelashes and brown hair and i love the feeling of your hand in mine walking down this narrow street where the salarymen have come to drink their problems away under dimly lit red and white lanterns and the clinking of glasses and beer being sloshed onto the table and the warm warm air that makes my skin all sticky and i think, no i feel, i feel like i've really found myself here.

steps

if we could trace our steps back
back to cold hands thrust into pockets
back to earphones, for sharing
back to half melted ice cream waffles
and turned up shirt collars
back to the things you say without saying
what would we find?

sense

cherry hair and lips
and a warm hand over cheek and bone
formulas and vortexes
make sense
with you

Nothing up my sleeve but my heart
and a dozen paper cranes, folding into themselves
as the sun cuts through swathes of seeping despair
you tell me there will be a next time
but your eyes are looking to the horizon
and the bones on the back of your hand are playing only one note
So I sing my lonely song with all the broken hearts

~in collaboration with blurs of joy

there's no glitter in the gutter

I was: our reflection on the floor and the violence of rain on the dashboard. Our neck muscles straining as we crane our heads up to the ceiling, and clouds shifting across the sky. Stars strung together by stories and memory as we breathe in cool, quiet air. Our fingers and palms moving to the beat of the music, and my head spinning. The incessant noise in my head stopped for just a few moments, and I was glad.

want

I want to stop standing still. I want to hold on to your fingertips and lie underneath midnight blue and sky and stars and openness until it gets to be too much, and go to places I've never been to and be terrified and exhilarated at the same time. I want to get my feet to move. I want to.
 

it happens

 

It happens sometimes when I'm doing the most mundane things. When I'm washing the dishes, or when I look up from my book at the next subway stop, was that you who just came in? I want to tell you what I've seen and done, what I've accomplished so far in my life. I want to grab your hand and point, look - I travelled here and there and touched this very spot, I ran down this street with a good friend laughing about something silly, I laid my fingertips on this window and marvelled at just how much beauty there was passing by, and slept on this floor just as the sun was coming up. I fell in and out of love, and I had my first drink there, a glass passed around a circle. I cried in that bathroom stall and spent that many hours on the phone, and I decided to go down this route instead of that other one. I made my first home here. I was afraid, and I am still afraid. If you knew that I made it here, what would you say?

wise

The dark room is littered with strings of tiny lights stretched out across the ceiling from the front of the stage to the back of the bar, the space in between caught in a whirlwind of people's conversations breathed into your ear, casual touches they think you don't notice, laughter making their way up a scale, and the pretty noises she makes when she grabs a few bottles of beer at a time in her hands. You lean against the speakers and let your fingers dance along the grooves of the machine, your heart beating in tune with the drums. Everyone is nodding and singing to the same song, the same beat, the same music; cheeks flushed pink and red, mouths parted open in anticipation of the next word. You turn and smile at the person next to you.

time takes you now, fear it after.

For the first time in a while, you feel alive.

keep the car running

keep it running while we link arms and run down these lit up streets together, our feet a blur on the sidewalk, skipping over cracks and potholes and painted lines, wind cutting across our faces, the cold slipping in underneath the fabric of our shirts and stars that blink above layers and layers of clouds. keep it running while we order greasy food from a store that runs all night long filled with people and warm food and condensation on the glass and tip cups made out of styrofoam and plastic bags that are handed to you with extra ketchup on the side, please and thank you. keep it running, we're just going to sit here for a bit, our hands skimming over dark wood turning red from the lighting, legs getting stuck against leather seats, and tell each other stories that are mostly true and find out things that we didn't know before, find out things about ourselves. keep it running, we'll be a while.

"I was searching for the things that never change"

What am I searching for? Your steady hands, thumbs brushing over collarbones, fingertips tucking in a stray hair. All of us lying down on the carpet in my room, shoulders against each other, windows open. A gentle nudge in the morning, get up it's noon already do you want lunch? The radio blaring when he forgets to close the garage door. The faint light in the basement and noises the sewing machine makes when she steps on the peddle, when she makes that last stitch. That look on your face - you know what I'm thinking about, but you'll wait until I'm ready. I guess there are a few things.

remembering

I remember: your warm hand at my shoulder, your fingertips tracing patterns on my back, arm around my waist. Steady, steady.

The look in your eyes that told me what you were thinking of at that moment, the folding of your hands and darting of eyes when you were lying, how your jaw moved when you were angry.

I want to forget.

ghosts

It feels good to push your hair back from your forehead, wet and matted around your face from the heat, and to lean your head back on cushions, letting your body cool and relax from the tension. You close your eyes and nod to the beat of the music that vibrates off the folds in your ear, to the singer's voice that nearly pushes you forward, to the feathery light touches the tips of your fingers make on the fabric of the couch.

You search and search in the recesses of your memory for that person who used to sit next to you, and just for a moment you feel him close to you, warm breath on your neck and collarbones and that distinctive cinnamon smell that seemed to trail after him all the time. It lasts for just a moment. Then you're thrust back into the present, and you're sitting there by yourself again. You open your eyes, and somehow it's okay.

space

I wonder, how much space is there in me that I can give to someone else?

goodbye

December, 2009

It’s been about 2 years since we started growing apart, 11 months since we broke up, 10 since we’ve seen and spoken to each other, and about far too long that I’m still thinking about you. I've always told you that when we were going out you rarely appeared in my dreams. And now I dream about you quite frequently, and it’s the same deal every time. I ask how you’re doing, what you’re up to these days, because I have absolutely no idea. It’s so strange to go through everyday not knowing what you’re doing. It’s strange that I’ve gone through so much this year: graduating, applying to schools, interviewing, getting in and angsting over which school to pick, then going to Japan by myself, and then finally getting to this place. And every time, I thought of all these things that I would to tell you, but you weren’t there. So I would tell my friends, the people who I could actually count on. But at the back of my mind I would have liked to see how you would have reacted, what advice you would give me, if you believe in me, if you’re proud of me. It feels so strange that I’ve gone through all those things without you behind me, telling me that I’ll be okay. Why do I still want your approval or reassurance?

You know I see you sometimes when I’m out, at odd times of the day? I’ll see someone who kind of looks like you, or someone wearing something familiar, and I’ll look back a second time just to make sure. We’ve spent 6 years together and I showed you a part of myself that I never showed anyone else. And to suddenly have that gone, it’s a weird feeling. It’s not like I’m still in love with you, but I think I miss you as a friend, like a lot. I don’t know why you haven’t returned my text messages or my phone calls. Maybe it’s because you’ve moved on. Maybe it’s because you feel uncomfortable keeping in contact with me, I don’t know. But I do miss you, and I really want to know what you are doing these days, if you're doing something you love, if you're happy.

Because I am. I may not know if what I'm doing is the right thing to do, if it's something that I'll regret later, but at least it's a plan. It's something completely new and exciting and scary and I still question myself on a regular basis, but hey, I got myself here. So I hope you're okay. And that one day you'll decide to pick up the phone or send me that e-mail telling me how you are. In the mean time, I'll continue doing this myself. It's hard, but somehow I think I can get through it.

Goodbye, because I need it to be.

change

I was, and am, always afraid of losing touch with my friends. The ones that I've been with since elementary school, the ones that have stuck with me through all these years, the ones who understand me and love me the way I am.

But sitting here with them in my room with the windows open, legs sprawled on the warm carpet and heads tilted back, laughing over pictures and scraps of paper and memories that go way way back, I don't think that I have to be.

I had a feeling once, that you and I, could tell each other everything, for 2 months...I said never pick sides, never choose between two, but I just wanted you, I just wanted you.

I wonder if I'll find you.

being

When was the last time I was completely and utterly myself? The last time I opened my mouth wide and laughed out loud with no self-consciousness, the last time I confided in a friend one of my deepest secrets?

It's difficult to do sometimes, isn't it? I think we've all grown to put on appearances to give our best impression. And to show our ugly parts, the parts that we're not proud of, that's difficult to do.

But I guess that's what beauty is. To not be afraid and to let go and to be someone who does things most true to what we believe. To face the sides of ourselves that we don't like, to take risks, to stop lying to ourselves. It can be downright frightening, to be so vulnerable and full of flaws, but it's probably liberating.