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.
tenminutethoughts 