Tag: melancholy

Laughing on an old brown leather couch.

From August 2014.

One of my dad’s favorite comedians has always been Robin Williams. For as long as I can remember – I have been obsessed with my dad’s laughter.

I think it soothes me. It lets me know that in that moment everything is good. We are all safe. Whenever I have the chance to snag my dad away so we can watch a comedy or a stand-up special – I do just that. When he laughs really hard he makes a lot of movements and eventually it just all becomes one big wheezy sound. Sometimes he laughs so hard that he cries. And we spend the next few days repeating our favorite lines to each other and laughing all over again.

That smile. That laugh. Two of my favorite images in my short lifetime.

Today, we watched a Robin Williams stand-up, followed by an interview. My mother and I on one couch, my dad on the other, and my younger brother passed out on their bed. I watched beyond the images moving on the screen. I looked for small remarks made by Robin, that today, mean a hell of a lot more than they did years ago. Words showing the darkness that lived within him as much as he worked at making others happy and full of laughter.

I realize that he has left us with all of these gems to assist in our laughter for years to come. He is still here. The man that he let us know. All of the different masks that we were privy to.

I also look to the man to my right, my father, and feel the warmth of comfort deep in my belly.

Things are okay.

They could be better.

They could be worse.

But we are here together. Alive. Breathing. Laughing. Smiling. Eating. Drinking.

I make a promise to myself today to pay more attention. To the underlying message in the words spoken by those I love the most in this bittersweet moment. I will not just listen, but hear. I will not just watch, but see. I will not just say, but do. I make a promise to look beyond what they think their eyes are telling them. To see the pain. The dark. The hurt.

I also know that it has never been more clear that when my mother and father no longer inhabit this earth physically with one another but with me – that their words, their laughter, their faces, and their movements will live in

my heart,

my soul,

my mind,

my bones,

my cells.

I will always remember all of the times we laughed so hard that we cried on the scratched up, with years, brown leather couches in the living room.

–S.

You’re Invited to a Birthday Party.

There is this thing about birthdays – something ALWAYS happens.

The boy you love doesn’t love you back. The friend you really want to be at your gathering is not there. Some friendship is not where it needs to be. Something about your body doesn’t look quite right. The outfit you picked a week ago doesn’t look as good as it did in the fitting room. When does that ever happy, anyway?

I feel like I have ruined some of the most important moments in my life for myself. The overtime that I put the thoughts in my head through and the expectations that I set for people, or relationships, or moments.

I am finally learning to live in the moment. I understand that every birthday is a year closer to death.

However, how much more afraid would you be to die if you never really lived at all? If you never celebrated? If you never made ridiculous wishes as you blew out your candles? If you never got your face smashed into your cake by your older brother? If your dog never came and swiped a piece of food off of the table during your party while no one was looking If you didn’t take the 5,621 and a half pictures that your parent wanted you to? If you didn’t dance horribly to your favorite song with a group of your closest friends? If there wasn’t just a little sadness mixed in with pure joy? If there wasn’t some god awful presents that you had to put your fake smile on during the opening of them?

You wouldn’t be afraid of dying, you’d just be dead.

I think my biggest fear comes from the greatest moments not being able to last forever. One day, they will fade. I will fade. And someone somewhere will be wishing that their best friend Piper came to their birthday party and the whole day will be ruined. Even though their mom made the birthday cake from scratch. Even though there is a used truck with a big red bow parked in front of their house.

Turn off your thoughts every once in a while. And just celebrate. Act like those 6 or 7 hours are your last. And when you blow those candles out, wish for forever.

And let’s stop ruining things for ourselves before they’ve even happened. Just because something isn’t how we imagined it – doesn’t mean it isn’t beautiful in it’s own right.

Let’s celebrate everything – because we never know when the last time is the last time.

Please, PLEASE, go out and celebrate.

–S.

Even though we didn’t make it, I still feel the same.

From 2014.

I know that we usually say I love you after we play-fight or someone brings up a topic that is still too fresh to joke about, but in every moment, serious or comical, I love you with my whole heart.

The beginning of this summer, at least for now, will be the last we will spend together.

As the days near your departure, I am full and I am hollow.

I am full of inside jokes, laughter, snippets in time, late night adventures, songs, embarrassing moments, proud moments, drives around the city, dances downtown, all-nighters pulled for assignments, the million little pieces that comprise our friendship.

I am hollow because I won’t be able to look at you across from the table at a restaurant and speak to you solely using eye contact. I am hollow because in your presence I am home. I have found shelter. I have found comfort. Life seems scarier to take on without you being a ten minute drive away.

Although we have only known each other for two years, I feel that our friendship has weathered the test of time in lives before and after this one.

I see us deep in the country at the age of five, collecting lightening bugs in mason jars and counting how long their light will last one Mississippi two. I see us at the age of eleven trying to drive an old beat-up truck and running it into a creek. I see us at the age of fifteen running away and deciding that we would live out of the bed of that same truck. I see us at the age of eighty-two at the nursing home ogling the ass of the tall, dark, and handsome nurse.

I am forever changed because of our time together. I hope in the future that we do get that apartment or house together that we always talked about, and even if fate wants us to always be separated by miles as our lives head in different directions, I want you to find comfort in the fact that I always carry your heart with me and when I feel the breeze against my face on a hot Texas day, or see the lights of the city late at night, I see two girls in a truck, laughing and speeding away.

I’ll be seeing you,

–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.

What if it was supposed to be me?

Harvey Milk said:

“Go after her. Fuck, don’t sit there and wait for her to call, go after her because that’s what you should do if you love someone, don’t wait for them to give you a sign cause it might never come, don’t let people happen to you, don’t let me happen to you, or her, she’s not a fucking television show or tornado. There are people I might have loved had they gotten on the airplane or run down the street after me or called me up drunk at four in the morning because they need to tell me right now and because they cannot regret this and I always thought I’d be the only one doing crazy things for people who would never give enough of a fuck to do it back or to act like idiots or be entirely vulnerable and honest and making someone fall in love with you is easy and flying 3000 miles on four days notice because you can’t just sit there and do nothing and breathe into telephones is not everyone’s idea of love but it is the way I can recognize it because that is what I do. Go scream it and be with her in meaningful ways because that is beautiful and that is generous and that is what loving someone is, that is raw and that is unguarded, and that is all that is worth anything, really.”

Sometimes I wonder what if I tried one more time?

What if I told you that I was sorry?

What if I told you that I missed you every second of every day (and even the intervals between seconds), that I loved you so much that sometimes I just didn’t even notice it, not like an afterthought, but because it was that much a part of me, it was just a part of my existence, like breathing. ?

You were necessary like breathing to me.

What if I showed up one more time? What if I looked into your eyes one more time?

I am forgetting what your voice sounds like.

I am forgetting what your laugh sounds like.

I looked up one of your social media accounts.

I saw you with your new girlfriend.

You love her so much, you wrote.

You love her family as well.

She’s supportive and kind and crazy about you.

And that’s all good and well. It really is.

But I can’t shake the fact that I should’ve been the one holding your hand forever.

What if it was supposed to be me?

–S.

Overnight Bags.

You make me happy.

I don’t know why I can’t just shut off my brain and keep my heart working instead.

Scientifically, because one cannot function without the other.

I want to be one in this happiness. I want to live in it.

I want to dwell in it, but my brain develops pictures of the future, and I can’t see you in them.

I’ve packed your bags, although you’ve just arrived.

They say what we love, we leave behind.

Maybe, I just won’t tell you that I love you.

–S.

As Deep as the Ocean.

My heart is heavy tonight because I realize that it may never happen again.

Not that I want it to, but I may never find another connection like the one that I have with my best friend who moved away.

Not that I’m searching, but we live in that kind of society now.

Maybe it’s the generation that I am a part of.

I went out to eat with someone today – which I don’t do often these days – and they seemed so disinterested in what I had to say.

I’d say things that I’d tell her.

I’d refer to things that she would know.

Only to find out what I already knew – that this person wasn’t her.

We like superficial things now. We interact with people at work. We interact with people at school. We interact with people at the grocery store. We interact with people at the drive-thru. But anything more than this – is simply too much for you to ask us to do.

It’s too deep.

Depth scares us.

If there is no depth, it’s easier for you to rid yourself of that person.

It breaks my heart that lifetime friendships are a rarity in this day and age.

We meet seasonal people – over and over again.

We all search for it.

Connections.

Our Heart – Our Soul – Our Spirit – Our Mind.

They all yearn to be connected to something. Not necessarily romantic in nature. But just simply the comfort of knowing that one day you might not have a god damn thing to say or won’t know how to say what you need to say and that person will understand completely.

For generations to come, I wish you friendships with the depth of an ocean.

–S.

Heavy Heart.

Excerpt from a letter that now almost seems like it was written in a past life.

I’ll miss your stories. I’ll miss fighting with you.

I’ll miss your deep voice. I’ll miss knowing you.

I’ll miss hearing your smile through the phone. I’ll miss you calling me on your lunch break.

I’ll miss falling asleep to your text messages. I’ll miss waking up to your text messages.

I will miss everything so fucking much.

God, it’s really over.

My heart is so heavy.

It is so so tired.

–S.