Tag: old-friend

dear harrison,

the ac is out in the corolla and summer’s on her way to texas. lately it seems like a sick metaphor for my life. things dying. i find myself alternating between walking in grief or in fear. we try our best to hold on to everything that crosses our paths, but so much of life is having to let go of those same things. i know that on the other side of grief is acceptance or peace, but when you’re in it, it just feels like the world ending.

i listen to every sound the car makes now like stairs creaking in an old house. that’s what fear does. it makes you hyperaware of everything around you. you’re always waiting for the next big scary thing.

fear is a held breath.

i know that the world has ended for me on many nights and begun again in the morning. realistically i know that i’ll be okay. that no matter how i fall, i’ll still be staring up at the sky.

did you know that rock bottom has a basement?

time for me to crawl now.

all my love, suncica

Beginning Again.

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

I asked your mom for your address a week ago, and then nothing. Because a part of me doesn’t know what to say to you. I don’t want to say anything. Another part of me wants to tell you everything that has happened since I turned twenty-three. I want to be your friend.

For a really long time now, probably ever since you left, I’ve been angry with you. I think we’ve done a shit job of keeping our friendship alive. I know that I’ve been a shitty friend, holding on by a thread.

I’m a hard person to love. You’re a hard person to love too.

But I also know that you’re currently doing one of the hardest things you’ve ever done in your life.

I know that you’re scared. I know that you are lonely. I know that you are determined, and that you have that mean mug on. That someone forces you to be a morning person every single day. I know that you miss downloading music. I know that you want to watch One Tree Hill. I know these things. I know that you would never admit them. I know that for even five minutes, it probably feels good to hear from an old friend.

I told my cousin that I didn’t feel very close to you, and that I didn’t know the words to say. She said to just talk. About life. To be a friend – because we all need a friend. We all just want to talk and know that someone cares. Even us, those people who have spent a lifetime shutting everyone out. Because no one measures up, right? Wrong.

It turns out that we are not supposed to measure up to anything. We are just supposed to be human.

–S.