If a double decker bus…

To be honest, I always thought that love - real, true, honest love - would heal all of my pain. That all of the suffering that I’ve felt in my life would right itself like a wilted plant after a hefty watering. I came up with this idea when I was 13. I knew nothing about anything. In the love I experienced after this age, I did feel a weight lifted. I felt a shift in my guttural universe. But I always thought - too bad, we got so close. The pain remained. Better luck next time. I am destined to be Sylvia Plath: one day you’ll find me with my head stuck in the oven.  

I kept hope, because I noticed that the love I felt from person to person kept getting deeper, which meant to me that it would keep chipping at the pain until it was gone. Right now, I’m experiencing the most intense and indelible love I have ever felt. It has blown everything out of the water; it feels like how love in movies looks. And the pain is not only there; I have realized that none of the pain ever left. Love doesn’t have the power to remove pain. Love has an even better capability: it strengthens itself through common suffering. And we have both suffered. We can both say, I understand, and mean it. The pain I carry has been tinted with love. I've been thinking about how Michelangelo managed to draw the torture of Tityus in such a beautiful and erotic manner that it convinces us of the ambivalence of love. "Who will win out between sweetness and sorrow?" 

Before you, I have never looked at someone and felt true terror and awe for the intensity of the feeling. It is a primordial emotion. It’s what Stephen Chbosky means when he writes, “and in that moment, we were infinite”.  Before you, I’ve never had a kiss that felt like it belonged at the end credits. Before you, I don’t think I was even really alive. When I am at a loss for words, when words would disgrace the name of the feeling, I know now that must be love. There is no doubt. It is a clear sky as far as the eye can see. 

….crashes into us 
to die by your side is such a heavenly way to die 

that joke isn't funny anymore

i am coming to you from the hull of a sailboat. it's midnight, and the waves are gently and recklessly tossing the boat from side to side. i'm eating gas station m&ms and the sky is imposing. jung claims that a common cycle of myths involving a hero who gets lost at sea, eaten by a sea creature, and then slices his way out when the creature lands on the shore, with the amniotic quality of water and the sea creature as a symbol for the womb, points to a longing to attain rebirth through the return to the mother’s womb. love is dynamic: it can be lost, longed for, and reborn. and so can i. 

people change. this is a fact of life that, when you're 19 and heartbroken, is hard to swallow. but now i'm 22 and jaded, and i'm the one who's changed. pain is almost always the main catalyst for change. my short life has been full of pain, and the worst pain i ever felt happened on january 29. profound loss leads to profound suffering leads to profound change. but the last phase of this progression happens in the same way that the leaves on the trees change from green to orange: slowly and imperceptibly. in the short time i've had recently to catch my breath, pull up a chair, and put a hand on my own shoulder, i've realized that the person i sit across from is entirely different than the one i knew before january 29. this, incredibly, is how i've gained a small bit of self-compassion (something that has felt elusive for so long). i think it's because i am so curious to get acquainted with the stranger in front of me. 

i am the fucking architect. i've written that before, but it's never felt so true. even if other people respect you, you can always be the one to steal your own autonomy. it is also true that the only person you can count on to be there in the end is you. you have to live with yourself. i'm taking everything back, even the dog, dumbass. 

i drink a lot more coffee and smoke a lot more weed now. i'm on antidepressants that work, and left a relationship that doesn't anymore. my ship was a tempest. i am free, even if i still have pain inside me. my phone is currently turned off and it's a strangely small slice of peace that i needed. i'm so tired of answering to others, because it also means waiting for them to answer to me. my heart does it naturally. so sometimes, i need to turn everything off and watch my cat sleep - he doesn't answer to anyone. 

jung also says that "it is difficult to imagine that this rich world has become too poor to offer an object for the love of human atoms". i have to agree. he thinks our unconscious is a wanderer - trying to come back to love, to the world, to understanding, which is really an enfolding, being held in your mother's arms. have you ever just laid beside someone in silence? with only the sound of your breathing, experiencing the world separately, together. have you ever just let the waves rock you to sleep? 

i've seen this happen in other people's lives
and now it's happening in mine 

I dreamed I was a pigeon...

We know why we sleep but we don't know why we dream. Some things might forever be mysteries. I've resigned myself to the fact that I'll probably never be suicidal, because my anxiety is so intense that I have found countless ways to worry about death itself. I think this is what they call Stockholm syndrome.

It's like how my friend, in fourth grade, once got cast in an opera solely based on him fitting into a sailor suit. He had two minutes on stage and his grandmother sat through this whole three-hour German opera to see him. A journalist brought him Lord of the Rings figures to play with and he spent an entire rehearsal painting tiny Legolas and Smeagol. We are meaning-making creatures, but life is constantly running away from meaning. We stay because leaving is an unsatisfying option. Even if it's three hours long. Even if it's in German. 

It's like how I didn't realize how much I smile and laugh until a wisdom tooth extraction made it painful. It's like how I didn't realize what my heart deserved until it was ripped out. How I would have sex with guys and not want to be touched after. I never thought I would be able to pick my heart back up, but you did. It's still broken in places - but it's there. We stay because we're already here. We stay because we may not be able to find our way back. 

I started antidepressants recently. Honestly, I'm ashamed. I'm three months away from having a degree in psychology and I still feel ashamed. I feel out of control. I've been thinking a lot about how life will never be the ideal technicolour dream I want it to be. I either suffer yet feel more "authentic", or I try to alleviate my suffering and feel more "artificial". The truth is, being tortured feels like low rise skinny jeans. Out of fashion, uncomfortable, and, most importantly, unnecessary. It is not necessary for me to suffer. That sounds backwards but if you've ever suffered for your entire life, you'll understand what I mean. It's a part of me, and I'm scared to let it go. I'm scared to feel like I'm losing control. I've heard that people with anorexia report having better self control than the average person. In reality, their self control capacities aren't any better than anyone else. What anorexics claim as control is actually a lack of control. They become so obsessed with controlling their eating and weight that they can't stop - they're addicted. And there's no control in addiction. I've already lost control, and this medication is only trying to help me gain it back. 

It's the anxiety that's scared of losing control of me. 

And it should be. 

Just want to be like we used to
under the influence 
...and there ain't nothing like exploding
if you've got something to explode

- Matthew Good