What I Have Thus Far

Dear Holly,

Here's my story thus far. It feels dark and dirty to send this to you, as dark and dirty as it has been to write it. Maybe that's the key to this story -- looking in my past and scrounging up all the darkness and dirt that pushed the ephemeral "us" closer to each other. My real copy of the Ballad of Sexual Dependency hasn't arrived yet in the mail. Can we look at yours?

Can we hang with Lauren when she comes to town? She messaged me.

I appreciate the time I spend with you so much more when we spend it so much less. It gets condensed into tiny nuggets of treasure.

I don't know anyone whose creative opinion I would possibly ask before yours.

I'm going to go into an Email - if that wasn't clear already, I'm going to email all over you.

In Normal People Connell (and presumably Sally Rooney thru Connell) envisions a novel that is just emails and then dismisses the idea. I think it's a good one.

Like adulterated confession.

This story feels disgusting and a little shameful and I'm going to push forward into that and I think it's the good stuff.

I have no idea where I'm going in the world.

I don't know what the future looks like.

It's really stressing me out that _____ hasn't texted me and I don't know what to do.

I don't have another job.

New York can be so exhausting.

I want to last here but sometimes I feel like caving in.

And I'm here because of the great things it can do for me, but the grime and the fear... I miss the fucking ocean so bad. I need to get back to the ocean.

I'm so lost and I guess I've found a loose macro path but I don't know my micro path! It freaks me out! You don't know your micro path either but I seem to be more wont to get freaked about these things. You are able to calm yourself.

I cling to materiality for comfort... I'm like a hoarder. I know I need that laptop but this money is padding.

I think I have a biological clinical need to swim in a warm ocean and I keep subconsciously budgeting it in. I have to go somewhere. I have to swim in the ocean. Maybe I can fill this urge with a pool.

Yes, everything is about filling urges. Recognizing all our needs and trying to fill them in any way possible.

I have a secure relationship with Violet now thank god thank god seriously Violet's kindness and acceptance has been such a relief and comfort and safety thing for me. Deven was that to me too, and you. Having a person you can be yourself around is the first step to making a place home.

I just don't know how much longer I can stomach it.

I'm scared still.

God I just want to feel safe.

I fantasize a lot about leaving here. Going upstate or to an island or to Oregon. Being around trees makes me feel safe. I need to take myself to the park.

I spend so much money just to be alive.

Sometimes I'm scared to say things to you because it will make them real. Not just to you, to everyone. And yet it seems like I share everything in my mind all the time. I talk so much. Yes, I'm scared they will become real. But they already are real aren't they?

Things like: Right now I really want to leave the city.

I'm lonely.

I'm stranded.

I'm lonely and I'm stranded sometimes and I'm joyful sometimes and overall I'm okay, I know how to be okay.

Really all I look for anymore is home, and family. It's just utterly over. ____ and ___ and _____ will never be my family and I don't want them to be. My dad's house is a shell of a home. ____ and _____ are fighting and the _______ isn't sacred anymore. My job feels like a slippery wiggling glittery  fish. I want a hard steady thing to hold onto.

I try to focus on what's right, not what's wrong.

Will adult life ever have the charm, the certainty, the community, the majesty of one's best college years? Will the parties ever be so small and close again? Will we make shows in warehouses and garages? Will we ever sit in a room or a trampoline and play a group game?

The trampolines will have kids on them! What if your dear friend of many years tells you not to curse in front of the kids?!

That's what this story is too - me grasping at the past, the glory, the music and the movie of it all! What we were! What we could be! I have to go to grad school - I have to go to grad school.

That feels like the only answer...? Go to grad school?

I tripped so hard on that edible and felt I was switching between mother and child, like I am my own mother and my own child, I am holding myself. It's real, I am.

Violet came over and petted my head and we watched glee and our conversation was so good I took a voice memo.

We are all mothers and daughters and sisters to each other I think... Upwards and downwards and equilateral. Ties in many directions.

I'm so fucking lost and lonely. Gotta listen to bright eyes.

At least I can bike... Thank God for Bike thank God for Gio and Vio and Holly and Deven and my Mom and Room and Art and Natasha and Bookshelf and --

I wish I could shut off my emotions but they're half of what I have. The other half is mind. But the mind seems to feed on the emotions.

I'm like... stuck here. I need my mom if I want to get out! I wish I had a car and could go off.

Especially now, with the subway thing. The subway has been uncomfortable for a while, honestly. I hate the days where we all have to stand so close together. But the alternative... the cost of having and maintaining a car. Well, it won't be a New York City thing.

Okay, I'm not moving yet. I really want to make it five years. But I need more New York! I need more!

What do I want, I want a group of people holding hands,  I need watery healing.