honest – Page 8 – The Messy Middle 🖤

Nice 2 Meet You Again.

You’ve been getting drunk and going out with friends to sing karaoke and dance at night clubs. In those moments – you really feel infinite. You can’t feel the heartbreak. It’s almost like nothing even happened. Almost like he’s still yours.

You’re coming home to him, only to find out that your bed is empty. I know what you’re thinking: One, what are you going to do with all of the things you know about him? All of the things in your head. Can you erase it? Can we file it away? Can we fax it to his new girlfriend? Two, it’s exhausting to keep reintroducing yourself to someone in hopes that they will fall for you.

What is he doing with all of the information that he has collected about you? You want to bet me money that he doesn’t even care about half of it.

See, the truth is that you are worth knowing. You are worth loving.

He probably never knew that your favorite color was purple, that it makes you really sad that you are allergic to lavender, that you still cry every time you watch the Notebook, and that you get jealous when your sister gets close to someone.

You were ready to commit to him. He was going to be your one, forever.

But how could he be your one if he didn’t appreciate these things about you? Your one will appreciate your quirks. They will adore all of the things that make you uniquely you. You have a story. No one on this planet could ever be you.

We are all a kaleidoscope of a million different things. Things we have picked up from school, books, music, television, movies, magazines, life, death, love, heartbreak, loss. All of those little pieces gorilla-glued together to make a collage – a you.

So stop thinking that you’re not worth it. Don’t let him ruin it for the real one. Don’t shut yourself off in the dark, and collect a string of one night stands. It’s not worth it.

You’re a lover. A romantic. Hold onto that. Don’t kill that.

More importantly, don’t allow someone who cared so little kill something that you care so much about. You have always believed in love.

Believe in love – again.

Always, again – always, one more time.

–S.

I Hope You Get My Letter.

An excerpt from a letter that I wrote years ago to my then best-friend who went into the Air Force.

First and foremost, I am a writer. I think that my best writing comes from the darkest of places, and sometimes I have dry periods where I am not motivated to write any words. It has taken me a long while to share anything because rarely do people care about one another on that deep of a level.

Sometimes you don’t even want to heart your own voice. Not because I have been depressed or anything. I’m okay. I’m good. You just get tired of it – as with all things. The day is July 8th and the time is 1:31 am. Like the summer nights that have come before this one – I can never go to sleep before three or four in the morning.

My apologies. I feel that we left things in such an awkward place that sometimes I think – will we ever come back from that? I know that you have bigger things going on in your life and it doesn’t really compare to what friendships are going to survive or not. That’s how we are, I know. You’re with me or you’re not. But I also know that sometimes we have to swallow our pride, a million times over, and just speak.

So, here I am.

I’d like to tell you about myself. If you ever start feeling like you’re in a prison – I hope these words help you find a way out in your mind. I hope you find it in your heart to smile while reading my words and maybe even laugh.

Lord knows we need all the laughter we can get,

but I’ll probably be doing a lot of crying.

–S.

Gifts.

Eight Years Ago.

My brother was born the day before my father’s birthday.

For the last ten years, he’s been his greatest gift.

Every year, we make a party celebrating the both of them.

As I watched my parents this weekend – putting everything together, my mind drifted over the twenty-three different ways my birthday was celebrated over the years.

I always wanted more from my parents. The most expensive gift. More gifts. A better birthday cake. No homemade food, give me pizza. Give me a thousand different colored balloons. Get me a new birthday outfit. Every year should be better than the last.

I watched them clean the entire house. I watched them decorate it. I watched them prepare all of the food. I watched my mom make the cake. I watched them prepare the porch for the guests that were coming. I realized in all of these moments that I spent so much of my younger years wishing for more that I overlooked all of the present moments.

I never realized how hard they tried. I never appreciated the things that they did give.

I didn’t count the roof over my head as a gift. I didn’t care about their full-time jobs. I didn’t count the shoes on my feet and the clothes on my back.

I didn’t need a car on my sixteenth birthday or gold earrings from ‘Santa Claus.’

I needed to learn the art of appreciation.

If I could talk to a younger version of my self, I would help her to start appreciating mom and dad earlier. I would tell her to not allow it to take twenty some odd years to make certain realizations.

Start now.

They are amazingly complicated people in their own right, but breath deep and be patient.

Let them surprise you.

Time with them is the ultimate gift.

I’d tell her.

-S.

If.

If you were here, I’d come pick you up at 1:30 am.

We would stop at McDonald’s and pick up all the food and drinks that are the worst.

I’d put on a playlist that I made that night. It would be filled with all of our favorite songs at the moment. Sometimes I would sing lead and you would sing back-up and then we would trade places.

I would look over at you and see that you are hanging halfway out of the window taking in the summer breeze that only happens at night. You’d be sipping your soda and a bug would hit your face while we are speeding down the highway to the airport. You’d erupt in a big cloud mixed with spitting and cuss words.

We are coming up to our destination. My secret place. One of the main reasons my car runs out of gas quickly.

The airport.

The lights. The breeze. The air. The sounds.

We take it all in.

The music is still playing, but we are no longer singing.

Here, conversation doesn’t have to take place. We are both sifting through our own demons. And this place calms us.

People are leaving. People are coming back. And although physically we are not on any of those planes – I see our souls rise up into the night sky and make things right.

We will always have these memories. And even when their warmth is no longer able to sustain our friendship – we know that those two young women are still alive somewhere in this universe.

A touch. A whisper. A scream. A cry. A moment. A feeling.

Fleeting.

In this moment, I am still aware that we are going to separate soon.

That you will move away and things won’t be the same. That someone else will get to hug you and see the way your face lights up for Pepsi and hot Cheetos – even though you know they make you break out. That someone else will learn all of your faces, different laughs, and words you’ve made up.

Someone else will be your friend. They will learn to love you. They will learn your ways.

-S.

You held me.

Years ago – in a letter to my dead grandmother – I wrote,

I disappear.

I disappeared.

I was disappearing.

And then he saw me.

You saw me anyway.

And in your own way – you were breathing life into me. Ultimately, in the end, I think breathing life into me, made you breath life out of yourself, and you had to let me go.

So, you let me go.

Usually when I think of the men in my past – I think of the pain that came from those unions, I think of them as having shined negative light on my life, dimming my own.

But you’re different. I remember the joy that came from our union. I think of the glow you brought into my life, a neon light at the end of the tunnel, a beacon in the night.

You held me.

I don’t mean with your physical touch.

I mean,

you

held

me.

Even when you let me go,

you

held

me.

You were holding me.

You

are

holding

me.

Have you ever had someone touch you without touch?

Have you ever had someone caress you with their words?

Have you ever had someone hold you with their heart?

You were my friend before you ever became my lover.

You held me.

You communicated openly. You let me see your heart.

You held me.

I never had to question where you were or who you were with. Trust came easy.

You held me.

You understood me, like we were speaking in a language from a life before this one. Maybe your melancholy heart just understood my melancholy heart.

You held me.

I could be naked with you.

You held me.

Your eyes catching and locking with mine across the bar through the smoke, sweat, body heat, and liquor smell.

I felt you before I saw you, too.

You held me.

Your desire for me was always reflected in your eyes. Your hunger exciting me.

You held me.

You made me breakfast every morning that we woke up together.

You held me.

You took the time to read my heart.

You held me.

Your laughter was the soundtrack of my life for months.

You held me.

You would stay up with me even when you had to be up early in the morning for work.

You held me.

You were my first kiss. The first time you kissed me – you drunkenly made me ramen noodles. taking care of me even at the beginning. I was nervous and word vomiting all over the place because I knew that you were going to kiss me with your whiskey mouth. You told me to shut up and you kissed me. Being with you, was like a ramen noodle and whiskey kiss. Not understanding why two things, two people, who shouldn’t work together – work together. Shutting up, so we could shut the whole world out together.

You held me.

That night, when the stars were big and bright in Texas (not like the song, but literally) you led me through the dark in the woods, using steps you had memorized to a clearing – showing me your place to get away from the loud of the world and into the silence. Woods surrounding us, crickets chirping, breeze blowing, you held me.

Someone can hold you without ever using their hands.

They can hold you with a look,

a laugh,

a whisper,

their heart,

their mind,

their soul.

I hope that you’re not having to breath life into anyone.

I hope no one is having to breath life into you.

It’s hard work, I know.

I hope you’re simply breathing easy and living easy – and still loving – oh so hard.

I hope you were held.

If not by me, then someone after me.

I hope you’re held now.

I hope you’re holding someone.

You are still holding me, not in a can’t get over you type of way – because I am over you, but the way you loved me, the way you held me, is STILL, to this day, tiding me over until someone else can hold me.

I hope someone, someday can hold a candle to you.

You held me.

–S.

Ode to my Forever Friend, my Constant Companion.

Music,

It’s been many years since I’ve written you – although we are never apart, forever together.

You’re like an imaginary friend with no physical body. I guess if I had to explain what you look like or feel like – I would say that you are like the caress of the wind. You are able to touch without a physical presence. So, thank you for your magic and your wonder.

Your words have helped me to realize that I’m not alone in many things that I’ve felt over the course of my life and those ties that bind have helped me to sustain my belief in humanity – helped me to always remember that at the core, we all feel.

You also sustained my belief that love exists. I don’t know that I can say that I’ve felt that earth-shattering, out of this world love connection with anyone yet, but I remember how many times you’ve sung about it – in different genres. So, I trust that you know what you’re talking about. After all – how could there have been that many loves worth singing about and not one for me? So, I believe.

I appreciate that you’re ever-changing, but also constant. We’ve grown together over the years. Evolving and maintaining all at once – into forever.

I don’t imagine that we will ever run out of silence, sounds, words, or even time. That lets me know that you are one of few people or things that will truly follow me to the end. This brings me ultimate peace. It would only be right that the presence that was the soundtrack of my life would be there with me to meet my death.

I appreciate the high echoes of your piano notes, and the low timbre of your guitar strokes.

You’ve made me cry.

You’re made me laugh.

You’ve reassured me.

You’ve reminded me.

You’ve taught me.

You’ve made me smile.

You’ve made me hum.

Most of all – you’ve made me dance.

You’ve held my hand for a long time.

I’ll be feeling you – in the next song, always in the next song.

–S.

Ode to the Love of my Life.

At the time this letter was written – I referred to music as the love of my life, but as I’m healing – I realize that I AM the love of my life. Now, I would say that music is probably my oldest friend, my forever companion. My mother told me that I have loved music for as long as she can remember.

Music,

When I think back to my earliest memories, there was you.

On my hand I can count the number of things in my life that have been constant and you always make the top five.

Thank you for staying up with me when I couldn’t sleep. Thank you for keeping secrets. Thank you for believing in me when I didn’t believe in myself. Thank you for picking the best movies. Thank you for your words of wisdom and strength when I could not put together my own. Thank you for being a distraction right before my biggest presentations. Thank you for studying with me. Thank you for crying with me. Thank you for thousands of drives around the city. Thank you for blocking out sounds that I didn’t want to hear. Thank you for nights out on the town. Thank you for always being around for road trips.

Thank you for your consistency – summer, winter, spring, and fall.

Thank you for being there for the transition periods within my life, and for moving schools with me. Thank you for sleeping with me when there was no one. Thank you for being my someone. Thank you for using no words when the situation called for that. Thank you for always knowing the right words to say. Thank you for understanding heartbreaks, and the times that I ran back to the wrong people. Thank you for being my friend when I felt that I was the only person in a room full of people.

You walk with me in everything I do.

I am forever grateful to you because you have shown me true love. You heighten every situation. I don’t know where you end, and where I begin. It has always been us two.

Your whispers in the dark. Your yells in the night. Your repetition when you think I can’t hear you.

Sometimes, I overlooked you in moments when I thought I found something close to your existence, but more than ever I remember how in love we have been, how in love we are, and how in love I hope we will be.

Wherever you are, I am home. You are everything. Everything is you.

Music, even if we never get that old thing back, I want you to know that you are and always have been the love of my life.

Yours,

–S.

You Are.

YOU are

photons in the dark,

beauty in a sea of ugly,

a rose growing from concrete,

rain in a drought,

sunshine in the winter,

love in the midst of hate,

pleasure erasing pain.

YOU are,

more than I ever fantasized about,

better than my dreams,

my one,

bursting at the seams.

YOU are,

the music to my every lyric,

I’ll shout it from the mountain top,

I want the whole world to hear it.

–S.

Safe Places.

The room is clean, a candle is burning – the scent is eroko wood and moss. It is raining outside, and a ‘Relaxing Hang Drum Music for Meditation and Yoga’ video is playing from YouTube on my other tab.

I am on my period, bra-less, with tied up wet hair, wearing a face mask.

The scene is perfect for the pouring out of hearts. A safe place.

I find that although I have people that I would deem safe places for sharing – I still find myself censoring and toning down what is really in my heart and on my spirit.

So, to me, writing is the ultimate safe place.

My ultimate safe place.

–S.

Have you ever?

Have you ever wanted to stuff everything you could into a backpack and get on the next bus running?

Look out of of the window until everything blurs into one?

Not even have to think?

See if the wind feels differently against your skin somewhere else. See if the sun rises using different colors. See if the smile that people give you actually reaches their eyes. Find out if the night sounds play a different melody.

Does the moon still watch you?

I am here,

but I am also on the bus.

I am still running.

–S.