notes from september

I. The cards told me to surrender, let it go and let it be. But god am I gnawing at my fingernails.

II. My hair was up, neat with no tufts of hair sticking out visible from the front like it usually is. I think I looked clean. A fitting shirt, fitting shorts and white shoes. I looked clean. I wondered if I looked like a palatable family-oriented, straight good girl. If I was easy on the eyes, easy on the heart, easy to swallow, easy to digest. Something you’d sit on your tongue, and savour a little longer. I want to be packaged neatly, able to fit into a white gift box with a giant pink bow. Sometimes I think I’m too much. Too much personality, too much to say, too much lore - if you will. Too complex, too incomprehensible - I feel the same way about her despite being her 24/7. Too tough to chew on, and even harder to swallow. I think I’m too much, yet not enough in the ways that matter. Too quiet in class, never speaks up, never confident enough to pull the class presentation off on the fly. Too much yet simultaneously not enough.

III. I’ve been thinking myself into circles and giving myself tummy aches. Maybe I haven’t gotten better at finding my individuality.

IV. She’s been drifting, I don’t see everyone often enough. I’m afraid that the next time I do, i won’t be able to glimpse into the window of their chest like I used to. “You are a language I am no longer fluent in”. But I suppose that is the way of life. I’ve learned to cope by realising that at times, people leave to make space for others. I’ve recently watched the second installment of the Before Sunrise Trilogy: “When we’re young we think we’ll connect with many people in our lives, we grow older and realise it only ever happens very few times”. It’s been eating me alive. University, my very last avenue to find any semblance of a community, kinship. I feel as if I have wasted my first year. I don’t ever want to let this go. I don’t think I’ll ever learn how to. And maybe what if I don’t want to? Because what is grief if not love persevering? If it is not simply love in a heavy trench coat? But lord grief is heavy, suffocating. Allowing love to serve its purpose and pass, is that any different? Love is never wasted, knowing that there was love in that moment, enshrined forever in that sliver of time and has come to pass. It may not exist anymore in this timeline, but it persists in another. Love is never wasted. Shouldn’t that be enough? I want it to be enough. To make space for new loves, but lord what if it doesn’t happen again? I don’t know. Familial love is always right here. Right here. Yet it seems yards away, enshrouded in years of emotional torment and suppression.

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

V. Whenever I’m with her, we seem unable to hold our laughter in. I’ve missed just sitting in a class, doing nothing meaningful, fooling around, cackling, dying of laughter, tears in our eyes, gasping for air. I’ve missed this. This is my last few chances to savour these moments. I wish I could keep them bottled up in a little locket, and wear it around my neck.

VI. I think I’m learning to be okay with being the one who loves more, who holds on a little longer, a little tighter. I've been re-reading a piece on substack, on how it’s okay to care too much. Your capacity to attach to people is your capacity to attach to the world. I love, I wear my heart on my sleeve and it shouldn’t be shameful. I think I’ll always be the one who loves more - simply because I only ever see and understand from my point of view. It feels that way most of the time I think. “I see everyone and I think: someone is going to fall in love with you one day and I can see why”.

VII. As Ethel Cain says: if it’s meant to be, it will be. I forgive it all as it comes back to me.

VIII. Love is never lost, it continues to live forever in that moment. Love is never wasted, it is beautiful for as long as it lasts. So leave, walk out. I won’t blame you. Just know that I love you still - probably for all of eternity and you’ll be welcome back to visit anytime. I love you I love you I love you and I let you go. My love is an unending reservoir, interminable. I dole it out indiscriminately because all the love I give eventually comes back to me.

It is a bitter pill to swallow but love cannot grow where it cannot be nurtured. So I’ll leave, I’ll force myself to leave because I have so much capacity to love and be loved. I know I deserve better than to be fettered to a cesspool. I’ll leave because I love myself and I have to. If you do the same I won’t blame you, I’ll still love you I promise.

IX. I am not family-oriented. I have nothing tethered to me, keeping me here and maybe it scares me. Or maybe that’s the reason why it’s so easy to dream of a life of my own far from here.

X. I wore my heart on my sleeve, I spoke my truth and I’ll never regret being open, vulnerable and laying myself bare. It is never a loss. Take that risk and put yourself out there for a solid confirmation, instead of living in the maybe. I wear my heart on my sleeve, I am sensitive and feel deeply. But I am no longer ashamed. I lean into it. What a joy it is to have the capacity to feel so deeply! To have every experience in life be so vividly splashed with colour! I lay my cards out. Take it or leave it, I’ll be able to walk away without allowing the ‘what ifs’ eat me alive.

XI. I found journal entries detailing my social anxiety from when I was 15. I don’t think I’ve ever changed. I wish I were someone else. Happy. Pretty. Loved. In love with everything and everyone. She belongs. She is satisfied with what she is doing. She excels and finds contentment in it. She is secure in what she wants, and what she has. She is optimistic, brimming with new possibilities and experiences. She has never tasted the bitterness, the weight of yearning and want. She has never desired. She achieves all that she works for. The universe works in her favour. Love, life and light fall into her lap in abundance. She is never in want. She sees the good in everything, the little sparkle in the concrete sidewalks. She walks with a pep in her step and listens to the wind whistle as it parts around her. She has a hand to hold, never knowing the profound weight of emptiness that would arise if that hand were to slip away. She is happy. She is pretty. She is loved.

XII. I think I study too much - or waste too much time in between. I love peppermint tea. I don’t know why I lie to my parents. I know I’m harbouring a secret and I can feel it driving a wedge between my mother and me. Sometimes it feels like a secret not worth keeping if I get nothing out of it.

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Journal excerpts from September and a little from October. There’s a theme that is quite apparent and has been consuming my every waking moment. Feel free to psychoanalyse these if i die tomorrow. I hope something resonates.