jan 1st // thoughts on the old year

In which I romanticize something that never really worked in the first place // when I am mourning the loss of having a second half

I drove my gf at the time back from the homecoming football game. We had a talk about my fears (as usual) but then the light was golden and she was singing and her hair was so, so orange, and I thought “there can’t be anything as beautiful as that.”

I’m reflecting back on the year, and it makes me so melancholy, because there was a time where I looked in the mirror and realized I had everything I ever wanted. It was my ex's birthday and I was washing my hands in her bathroom. I looked beautiful. She and her friends were waiting for me in the other room. Her friends adored me, and I adored them, and I couldn't comprehend the idea of having a group of people so thrilled to see me. But more than that, I had a tentative but happy relationship with a girl I liked since the moment we met. It was all I ever wanted.

I’m reflecting back on the year, and it makes me so melancholy, because there was a time where I looked in the mirror and realized I hated myself. I sobbed my eyes out and wished I could unzip my skin. My ex and I had kissed for the first time -- and it was disgusting. I was too old to be reacting like this, but too young for prior experience. It was squishy and wrong and she tasted bad, but I was supposed to like it. Everybody liked it. As we head into the New Year, I dream about college; I dream about living in the mountains and getting away from it all. Will there be someone to understand me? Will there be someone to cherish me, and walk oh-so-slowly alongside me?

I think there’s something beautiful in the suffering. I think there’s something beautiful — if not a little dramatic — about letting yourself get rained on. It’s the same thing as getting wrinkles around your eyes and mouth; we sob, and our ribs grow stronger, and the stretch marks and creases say “I lived.”

My ex, now, is more of a symbolic lost cause. She is just another crushed hope that I have tried to mold into confetti. I worry that my mind will stay stuck on her forever. But today, I woke up to the fog outside my window, covering my neighborhood like a veil. And once again, I thought, "there can't be anything as beautiful as that."