i got lured back into the other universe

after Olivia Gatwood

I was once 24 and vowed to never cry again. Never to cry again over a boy that broke my heart. But I did cry, I’ll admit. I cried quietly in my bed so my sister couldn’t hear me. I sobbed, I wrote so many Notes on my phone, countless poems on this blog. But I still did all the things that I thought proved that I lived in the alternate universe where I am unfazed by men who do not love me. I biked long distances, learned to expertly navigate my city and its gourmet shops, procured a roomy basket that fit my groceries and other knick knacks for errands. I lived a life. I got tan over the summer, I weaved through cars, I laughed, I bought new sandals.

I read dozens of books every year. I made time for all my friends. I strengthened my friendships. I wrote, I reflected. I interrogated every part of myself and my grief, reran through every part of that relationship, that heartbreak to see where I went wrong, where we went wrong. Tried to savor what I could… memories that have since browned at the corners or have become lost to the wind. I don’t think too much of it. It’s important to let go. For years I was so afraid of that. To forget some part of him. To forget the gestures of love he had extended my way, as if I would forget my own self worth if I didn’t carefully pack and unpack those moments in their cream manila envelope that has since gotten dirty with fingerprints. And when I turned 25, 26, 27 I got into a rhythm, didn’t I? I traveled. I got thin, I got my teeth fixed. I got pretty. And for whom? I said myself. I said I did it for myself because I didn’t do it for him. I set goals for myself. Fitness goals, career goals. I also lost myself along the way but you can’t say it was because I waited for him to kiss me. Because I burned photographs or slashed tires. No, I lost myself along the way by watching movies, shows, listening to music. Maybe to get lost in my thoughts, maybe to drown them out. But also with the intentions to curate a perfect personality. To find myself. To optimize myself. I did find myself through that, impressively I will say. I was always someone insecure about my tastes in culture. I didn’t want to be too basic, too simple, too girly, too tryhard. Too anything. I wanted it just right but never could put my finger on the pulse of it.

When he left, I rebelled. And in my rebellion, once the dust settled, I inadvertently did find myself. I found podcasts that made me feel more comfortable with my upbringing. I felt less shame with having grown up with less. I felt less shame for my flaws. In fact, I learned to accept them through the osmosis of others’ self-acceptance of their own circumstances. I went through a bewildering bout of streetwear fever and that faded away. I found music that I actually liked, because it was music that he wouldn’t have liked. But I also found music I liked that he would have liked. I felt more in tune with what I didn’t like: country music. Which he loved. For a while I thought there was something wrong with me when I didn’t want to camp out in the middle of no where to sing along to croons that never struck a nostalgic chord with me. I found books that I loved, and also found books I hated. I became more in tune with fashion, but that only happened during the pandemic. I thought fashion was the panacea to all my problems… genuinely! I bought bright and fun dresses and pieces, all carefully curated, as a reflection of myself and also as a key to my happiness. It did give me this temporary high but it was so fleeting and unfulfilling that the brutal realization kept me in denial. I didn’t want to have to admit it and I never did have to until the pandemic hit and I realized that I dressed for others. Now, I will admit that there are still a few pieces that I regret not having bought during the pandemic and we’re in 2022, so who is to say that my attachment to fashion is entirely superficial? There is staying power in it, in my connection to it. Fashion is a way that I express myself. When I dress well I feel more confident. It’s certainly not the only thing that gives me confidence but it can be the perfect pick me up. Easy.

But all these things… I suppose they would exist in this alternate universe, at least I’d argue it, though my heart and intent would have been in the wrong place. I did these things out of heartbreak. I found myself when the dust settled in the turmoil of heartbreak. Does the ends justify the means? The means were supposed to be more noble… but surpriiiise!

Ah, and here we are. Funny, isn’t it? Somehow I’m back on the other side. You know, the other universe where I waste hours and hours waiting for him to kiss me. Here, I write notes about him. Here, I go on reddit to look for answers, watch YouTube videos I wouldn’t otherwise, talk with friends about things that I havne’t talked about in years. I buried that heartbreak from 24. I was so much wiser, I grew up! I feel like the pandemic robbed me of a few years of my 20s but to be honest, I was the biggest culprit. I robbed way more years trying to be re-engineer myself into someone who was unfazed by heartbreak, someone who was going to be even better from heartbreak. What I got in return was skyrocketing anxiety, this wistful but deep set dissatisfaction with certain parts of my life that I’ve been able to brush away, because I am unfazed after all. Nothing can hurt me after all. Men can’t hurt me. He is out of my life and I stand tall now, don’t I?

Here is in this other universe, I suppose I feel embarrassed because I have acknowledged my presence in what some might call a reverting stage. No one admits to coming back here where they pine over men who don’t love them. No one wants to declare that they’ve moved back to that makeshift home where their happiness isn’t necessarily dictated by someone else, but it has an outsized influence over it. I was laughing watching some video giving advice about relationships because I was doing the complete opposite in my situation, but my intuition tells me that it’s the right move for me even if this video with hundreds of thousands of views says otherwise. I am a wiser person aren’t I? Maybe I skipped a few steps.

Sometimes I close my eyes and I can imagine I can smell him and it’s addicting. I’m not sure why I like the scent so much. I never really think about the future because I’m not sure what to expect. I am more terrified of the near future than the long-term future. I wonder if we will remain friends through all of this. That’s a line I have told many people. I want there to be a happy ending but I’m not sure how that bubble of my wildest dreams bursts. Is it naivete? I’ve always chastised and beat myself down for being naive but maybe it’s not the best way to live. But this life also feels like a prison. Not knowing how this works out. Feeling conflicted in my feelings. My feelings are legitimate, I know. I also know the truth of the situation. That I don’t want whatever this is currently. That I want more. And the only way I will be happy is if I stop compromising and I end this and accept the fact that the hopes I have for this arrangement are not going to come true. Or if they somehow came true, it won’t be this summer, very likely. And because of that, I am torturing myself. And I will always feel a dissonance between what I want and what I have. And so everything will always feel juuuuust out of touch. And I don’t have the hours to send in the mail, to hand to the girl sitting outside of the bar. I don’t have the time to read the novel in a day, to have arguments about God or a good night’s sleep. Because I am preoccupied with thinking about men who do not love me.

So I sit here at my laptop and I write this opus. I write what I have always known. That I’d have to come back here when I was on the other side. But maybe what I’ve truly been denying myself was whether or not I really made it to the other side, really made it to the other side of the universe. Or if I fooled myself into thinking that I reached some type of nirvana that felt like I was unfazed.

Because we know that I was always fazed. I broke formidably over his departure. I have written the word count of a novel for someone who did not love me. And yet I grew as a person. And maybe what I’m trying to say is that I will grow from this, I will grow during this. I don’t have to make it to the other side to do that. I can learn to love. I can learn to forgive. I can learn to speak up for what I want. I can learn to negotiate. I can learn to live.

I can learn to live. Because I wasn’t really living when I thought I’d made it to the alternate universe. I was just protecting my pride and nursing myself from all my hurt. But I didn’t live. And I came to New York to live, didn’t I? And not only that, I came to New York for Joan Didion’s NY, that brutal, unflinching, unforgiving foray into living my life, complete with all the heartbreak, love, joy, hope, peace, salvation, forgiveness, tears, fulfillment, and closure that I’ve quietly sought. It’s here. This is the universe. There was never an alternate one. It’s just here that I need to make my home.

i shouldn’t care so why do i?

why does it preoccupy everything? my mind? I can’t concentrate, can’t focus. all i do is worry about the wrong things. all i do is worry that i shouldn’t care but i do. and this is at odds with each other.

and then i think maybe i should end things. this torpedo that abruptly ends just as intensely as it started. i think it would hurt but at least i don’t suffer the way i do right now.

i think…. i am bored.

i think… i need to get out.

i think… i need to meet new people.

i think… i have started constructing the skyscrapers already in my city of dreams. you know, the one where i meander the streets happy in my sundress. my mind has already signed the zoning permits so i don’t want to stop building. but like i said before, it’s knowing that this city will crumble and we are only in Chapter 1. It’s knowing that this one will become ruins, perhaps not dilapidated or deserted because it can count on me to revisit it. To turn over every piece of rubble like I did with the other one, to look for clues of where I went wrong instead of what I should have done to begin with: raised my head, looked in the mirror, accepted that I built this city up, built this man up in my head and that’s where he lives, in my head. So why do I get disappointed when the one in my head doesn’t act the way I want him to do.

I am funny. I am hilarious.

I am human and I am hard on myself for sneering at that. I am my worst critic and my weakest link. I am always mourning something. Always impatient for a rebirth even when nothing is ready.

I’m always ready for closure because I mix that up with salvation. All I want is fulfillment and missing that, yearning that, eats away at me.

I guess I miss home. I guess I miss the comforts of the streets even if they are humid. At least they’re cleaner than here. At least my mind didn’t wander the way it does here. At least I felt good enough for the most part there in my little pond. Here, I am still learning the rules.

Here, the possibilities are endless. Here, I’ve found possibility. Here, I’ve been afraid to gamble. That was my first mistake. I just didn’t know it at the time.

sweet nothings

1. You know she started a YouTube channel and I’m happy for her. And when I think of you I think of how you didn’t deserve her and you got everything that was coming for you. And now she’s getting married, and she seems happy more of less, and I could tell she hates you. And that doesn’t give me closure but it gives me vindication and conviction that I wasn’t crazy.
2. An affliction is all I’ve known and a word I have never used until now.
3. I’ve lost track of the hours last week and this week. I need to keep focused.
4. I am not sure what I’m feeling.
5. I am in Joan Didion’s New York now and I’m not comfortable here.
6. I don’t know who I am any more but at the same time, I’ve never been surer.
7. The drive across the bridge will haunt me. The way the skyscrapers’ lights frame my whole view with the wind whipping through my hair as my stomach and heart are empty. I hate this feeling but I bask in it. I haven’t felt it since 2016 when my world burned and I was its only victim.
8. He never did try to reach out and that was for the best. But I often think that in a different universe I tried.
9. In a different universe, I wouldn’t be here. Maybe I would have stayed in my hometown, maybe I would have been happy. Maybe we would have gotten a fucking dog and I wouldn’t have injured my foot and we would laugh about our first impressions when we met. And we would go eat at Patria or some other bullshit foodie restaurant and I would learn to love it. And i would never have started listening to certain podcasts, never watched Cody Ko or Emma Chamberlain videos, never started running out of heartbreak, never looked behind me and had to spend time thinking about what I had to leave behind so that I could move forward. Maybe the feeling that things are working out would have grounding, would hold convincing permanence, would give me a heaping of hope that I have never even grasped. Like a bubble I want to touch but I know it will pop the moment I even dare get close. I am happy, I live a vapid, simple life, but I loved him, didn’t I? Everything would have been perfect. Nothing missing. I don’t ever trick myself into this delusional fantasy but I want to believe not that he would have completed me, fixed everything wrong with me, but that whatever is in that universe, at least I was happy. At least I never had to spend five years learning to forgive myself, growing out of spite, running long-distance out of grief, just trying to find a way out of the maze that I had built for myself.
10. I am in New York and it has its ups and downs. I’m not sure if I would trade it for the world even if I don’t have my dog, didn’t get to call him mine, didn’t cross bridges between boroughs and thought that my decision to move to NY was meaningless, holds no bearing, why am I here, what is it that I even want out of life. I thought all I wanted for so long was closure, but then I realized, now what? What’s next? To suffer again? To endure? To survive? These seem like tough odds, a trick trade. What the fuck am I supposed to do with these cards? I live, I spend money, I live to work, I love learning but it’s painful most of the time. I try to forget what had happened to me over the years, all the people who aren’t in my life anymore and what am I supposed to do with that information? I wouldn’t feel more whole if they were, but maybe that’s my problem.

what i misquoted in the lullaby

I suppose I signed on the line the moment I sat on the bed, pressed my arm into his and said a silent prayer. that whatever happens happens, that water trickles through pebble walls, heartbreak seeps into veins. We don’t plan for the weather six months in advance, but you have your armor ready on your coat rack anyway. You own the umbrella, the rain jacket, the t-shirt, the boots. You anticipate it gets messy sometime, however temporarily it may be.

Because there will be days of sunshine even if you can’t call them yours, caress them forever. There will be days that clouds move by, .

I think it was the story of his family that did me in, made me realize there was no turning back. Fuck. I got a front row seat at the play and now I can’t just walk out and leave. My eyes glued to the stage, intrigued by the plot. I thought it was nonchalant and yet here I am, looking into my reflection instead watching the first cinder dust float down the walls I’d built so many years ago.

I drew back the curtains, opened the window. They say sunlight is the best disinfectant and I demanded salvation. And what I saw instead were the ruins, the carcasses that had made themselves home in the shadows over the years. And I started cleaning house but the others were already moving in. I saw the ruins and now I see them in the forecast, I see the hurricane and it’s so far away but I know it’s incoming. I’m not sure if I’m prepared for that. I could move, I suppose. Reach dryer lands, stay away from the shores, promise myself that this is what I wanted.

And maybe I willed it, this storm? voodoo or something. I said yes in the beginning and then I wasn’t sure what I agreed to anymore. I know what I agreed to, but there is something about women, maybe, how we build alternative realities free of heartbreak and despair. I warped the contract, I expected more out of it. I never got to negotiate. Maybe that’s what it is. I want to renegotiate the contract not for something more but for a change in the direction of the tides, for a reduction in the wind speed, for the hours of rain to not inconvenience me at night. But perhaps I digress. I think it’s a woman’s trait. It’s a woman’s flaw. We all fall into the trap and it’s futile to chastise us.

I feel unhinged, which makes it the perfect occasion to write.

I am not sure what I want. I think I know what I shouldn’t want and I’m not sure if I can just move my feet to that rhythm and find my way to closure. I’m afraid I’ll start running for the wrong reasons. I’m afraid I will ruin songs that I christianed lullabies. I misquoted one of the lullabies that promised peace, promised closure and now I am stepping over the notes of the melody awaiting an ending that ends on a coda. And then what? How does the song end? I gambled and I’m about to lose either way. I feel my heart heavy and I can’t tell if it’s hormones or distilled sadness. I suppose it really comes down to the brutal truth that I let someone else write the rules to the play and now I am but a character on my choose-your-own-adventure and every ending is a tragedy. I shouldn’t have done it yet I know that what it has opened for me is a window of what ifs. It’s made me realize that maybe I did want something more out of the world, I wanted to live it. And is this not living in it? Because life is messy, life is unforgiving at times, because life wants you to grow and what am I but the most perfect tree, marred by nothing so I’ve listened to podcasts to build character instead. Isn’t this everything I asked for?

I took Joan Didion’s words and I’m trying to live in New York. I’m trying to suffer in it, bask in it, live it. It makes me uneasy. I think it’s made me hungrier for the world, but I question if this is the right path. Is there every a right path? Should I jump ship? How quickly should you rechart your path?

I am unsure who I want to be anymore. I am unsure how I navigate this world. This week, I’ve lost track of the days and the hours and it’s disorienting. This week, I bloom and I wilt and I bloom again. This week, I text my friends. This week, I lay in my bed feeling empty. This week, I smell my sheets and they smell just like him. And isn’t that so tragic? To know that the ship sank in the end but we’re only in Act I. To know that whatever this is is fraught, is ephemeral, is doomed. To know the ending and still choose to endure to the end of the story. Is that cowardice or is that courage? I am wrestling with this notion that love is not too much to ask. I am conflicted about what it says about me as a person to want more, to imagine more. And I’m confused if this is the same thing as to suffer.

what i lost in the divorce

I gambled it all, called the bluff and saw only a fool on the other side of the mirror. it’s been six years, can you believe it? you left before your birthday and didn’t tell me, so i quietly packed up the box, creased the tape gently, gave you your box, and watched you go. stood by the doorway unsure if i too could leave and you know what, i never did for a long time. always unsure if i was allowed to, whether it was safe to do so, preoccupied, consumed with wondering whether i was wrong for letting you go. whether i hadn’t fought hard enough when the answer was always no, i never needed to fight. the writing was on the wall and i wouldn’t dare read it.

did I look better in the rear view mirror?

that’s a trick question because you never looked back.

but i kid. and maybe because once again, it’s a beautiful day and i’ve got to study for exams and work on my machine learning project, i wanted to write. you know, i haven’t written in so long, but yesterday, i thought i had a deja vu where i was staring at an Access database. and i thought everything in my life has led up to here, and isn’t this what i wanted? a redo, a pivot, a new chapter.

and i want to believe that things are looking up. i was thinking about that the other day. whether or not i’d run into you and whether or not things would be like where they left off. how i felt about you because i don’t think, after years of reflection, that you had done me wrong. and that it was all me. i moved out after six years. god. i moved out of the city, out of the country. and there was a time when i never thought i would even leave that doorway, hoping maybe you’d come back.

but i left. and i love it. and it makes me sad that i like it so much because i get nostalgic and love to hang on to the past, but i think this is the sign that progress is letting go as much as it is moving forward. I tried dragging the world with me and i am exhausted.

i have wonderful friends and i’m discovering things about myself all the time. i realize i’m really numb to the things that once bothered me, excited me, moved me. isn’t that sad? this nihilism has overtaken me. i feel like i harbor elements of both gen z and millennial culture. my fashion and style has changed. my political views have warped. my understanding of myself is both more lucid and nebulous somehow. i’m not sure if i ever want to get married. i’m more in tune with my faults, more forgiving, everything i had worked to become because i needed to. i am less insecure, more self-assured, both more stubborn and less stubborn in certain ways. i don’t think you would recognize me and i’m not sure if i would have recognized myself if you asked me six years ago. but i suppose i don’t say that any more with a smirk, much less with an air of a desperation towards validation. i never got that validation and after a long time of waiting, i learned to abandon the hunt.

i guess i care about whether you would recognize me because i still want you in my life. i guess that had never occurred to me until now but i suppose i wish we were still friends in some capacity, that the rift that shattered everything were mended with cement that never quite matched the shade of gray on either side, but it was mended no less. i wish you could see me during my mistakes and triumphs. i wish you could see how i’ve grown because i think you would genuinely be happy for me, and i would be happy to know that. i searched everywhere for what i thought i needed: salvation. i thought i found it in street wear, in getting bangs, in travel, in the goal of pursuing grad school, in buying divorcee-inspired resort wear, trap music, alt comedy podcasts, watching emma chamberlain videos. and when the pandemic hit, it really was the great reset. because what i learned was not that it didn’t matter (i did like those things to varying degrees!) but that the path to self-discovery had nothing to do with you. that this path was not through you, it had nothing to do with you, there was no prize at the end that led to you. and as much as i used your absence as fuel to recalibrate, to be a better version of myself, to right my wrongs, to grieve, to begin again, the purpose was empty if i thought it was in any way associated with you. and when i realized that, i found peace. i really did.

i never succumbed to the many trends of the pandemic (baking, making kombucha, watching tik toks, drinking). i ceased much of my drinking, i started biking and running on my own accord, i learned to cherish my city, i learned to forgive, i learned to forget, i learned to work towards ambitious goals like grad school and applying to like 200 scholarships, i tapped into my creative side. i’m not sure if my writing got better… in bits. I read a lot. I learned to cook more meals, make hollandaise from scratch. I tried to help out around the house more. I invested in my friendships. I wasn’t sure how I felt about love because I’d been burnt so many times before. I stopped wearing makeup, I gained weight from stress and injuring my foot, my finally acknowledged that I had become lactose intolerant.

And I persevered!

You know, I never give myself credit for much. I hate to bask in my own glory, but man, I worked hard to get where I am today! I wrote like 300 scholarship applications and even did original research for a few of them (including making videos), I applied to like 300 summer jobs, I spent so much time curating furniture and apartment rental postings to get it just right. I reached out to friends in different cities even when they never responded. I tried so fucking hard, I never gave up. Every rejection really was just a lesson, a recalibration. I’ve been financially responsible, something I was terrible at prior to the pandemic. I’ve only both two tops in the past nine months (and no other clothes!). I trained and ran my first fucking half-marathon, which is a fucking feat when the longest I’d ever run before then was 5K. I went to Miami for spring break because I felt like it and hadn’t gone on a trip in over 2 years. I made friends at a pool party when I didn’t know anyone. I made so many friends at school by striking up conversations in my classes!

The divorce, not by the definition defined by the law, instigated like a six year about face, this weird metamorphosis. It was so painful, I cried myself to sleep so many times from grief, I did the right things for the wrong reasons, and the wrong things for the right reasons. But I also did the right things for the right reasons. And i also tripped up so many times!!! But I’m here. I’m hanging on and still climbing. I’m breathing. I’m not completely done grieving but it has tapered off.

I am a fighter above all else.

I don’t think you would have seen that when you knew me. And I don’t think I would have considered myself so back then either. But that’s what I got in the divorce. I got myself, smack dab in the center of the empty living room floor packing up her things, unsure where to go. I got myself, and it turned out all right.