Tag: short read

salted slug to nun

I often daydream about joining a convent. Being surrounded by women and devoting myself to a life with a structure that is outlined for me. Just obeying someone else’s directions and not having to decide what to do all the time. Being quiet a lot of the time.

I don’t know most of the time whether I believe in God but I do believe in the universe and maybe it’s all the same thing. I know this is the main thing that I would have to come to terms with. I know I would need to make this final decision to live a life with less decisions.

I feel like a slug. Like someone hit me with salt but didn’t finish the job. I want to take the rest of my limbs off and just lay down and not speak, pull my thinning hair up and away hidden behind the coif and veil and cap and never worry about it again.

I could be the first salted slug to become a nun.

I feel a weight on my chest sometimes as if I am running out of time to do this. I will never do this. I am almost 30 and the age limit is 35. They won’t take me any more, the nuns. I’ll be too old and too full of responsibilities and too far from God.

exit party

I fluffed the synthetic lilacs and anchored the purple foil balloons across the arch, careful to avoid contact with the sheer blue depths within. The Party Room had no windows. She’d selected ‘sunlight’ as her light filter, so I set it to 2 p.m. in Tuscany. I walked over to the connected sterile prep room to check on the prefab cake, which was beginning to cool from being taken out of the oven.

The celebration specialists would soon add icing in whatever color was indicated in the file. The scent would drift into The Party Room, and it would smell like confetti cake. Vanilla, that is to say.

I reached into my briefcase and pulled out her final file, mentally checking off the boxes. Lita Navarro, 28. Hobbies: jigsaw puzzles, poetry, old jazz records. No next of kin. She chose the “garden party” theme, knowing it would be held underground.

All of the standard compliance and waiver forms were signed, with photocopies stapled to the back of the file. The Final Statement was signed with looping cursive. Her request was to hold her party alone, which was unusual. There was an approval from the Department Head written neatly in red pen. Request: solitary celebration approved in 2 of 10 cases this quarter.

I was just replacing the folder when I heard the hiss of the seal of the main door disengaging.

She was early.

No one ever arrives early. No one wants to.

I walked out of The Party Room to the hall, waiting.

There is the soft padding sound of ballet flats on the composite tile. She rounded the corner, and I saw her frizzy hair first. Her dress was grey with a faint light stain spreading across the hem, accidental like sun-damaged car paint. She smiled.

“Hi,” she said.

I cleared my throat, extending a hand in greeting. “Ms. Navarro. I am the Final Approver for the Department of Departures. Pleased to meet you.”

“I didn’t want to be late,” she said, taking my hand and giving a light shake. Her eyes scanned the room. “Is it ready?”

“It’s… yes. Almost.” I motioned toward The Party Room, humming with soft jazz music. The scent of vanilla had just begun to seep in, sweet and pleasant. “Do you need time to review your file?”

“No.” She walked past me, stopping just shy of the doorway. “I know what I signed.”

She said it intentionally, looking up toward the simulated sky, blinking hard.

“It does feel kind of like Tuscany.”

“You’ve been?”

She didn’t answer. Then she said, “I’d like to start early, if that’s allowed.”

Technically, it was. But I hesitated. In my experience, people usually stall for the first few minutes. Sometimes they even asked for more time. It was rare to request to begin a Final Celebration nearly fifteen minutes ahead of schedule.

“Sure.”

Lita walked slowly around the perimeter of the garden simulation, her fingers trailing through the holographic bushes. She touched them like they were real.

“You know,” she said, “I used to want a real garden. But then I killed a basil plant in college and gave up on growing anything ever again.”

“You’re not alone,” I offered. “Most people do.”

She didn’t smile. Just sat down on the iron café chair beside the celebration table, which was draped in white lace and topped with a single unlit candle, awaiting its cake counterpart to become whole. Her file stated that there were to be no guests, only the specialists. So it was just me.

“Do you want me to review your Final Statement out loud?” I asked. It was the closest people got to a eulogy in these situations.

“No.” She glanced at the cake, being placed carefully on the table by a specialist and now iced and decorated with edible flowers, as per her file. “But I’d like a piece of that. Is that weird?”

“Not at all.”

I cut her a slice and passed it over. She took one bite, chewed thoughtfully, and placed the fork down.

“When was the last time you had confetti cake? It tastes so good,” she said. “Like the kind of cake you eat at a school birthday party, where everyone gets that one skinny slice of pizza and a Capri Sun.”

I marked the statement in the file. Subject accepted ceremonial cake.

“You can sit if you want,” she said, not looking at me. “You don’t have to hover.”

I sat across from her. I was trained to make it as comfortable as possible.

“Did you ever have a party like this? When you were alive?”

“I’m not—” I began to say. But stopped. It wasn’t worth the correction. My mind went to a memory of a picnic in a park with my girlhood friends. I shook my head, no.

“I mean,” she continued, “did you ever get the kind of celebration that felt final? Not like a birthday, but something else. Something where you knew, this is the last one of these I’ll ever get.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Unless you’re choosing to undergo this, I don’t think we usually realize it’s the last time until it’s already passed.”

“That’s the trick, isn’t it?” she said, wiping her mouth with the napkin. “Knowing it while it’s happening.”

She stood and ambled over to the digital pergola, where the sun cut little diamond shapes on the floor.

“Do people usually cry?” she asked. “In here?”

“Sometimes. Not always.”

She nodded. “I don’t think I’m going to.”

“I believe you.”

She reached into her dress pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper, folded in half twice. “This isn’t my Final Statement. It’s something else. Do I need to file it with you?”

“No. You can read it, if you’d like.”

She looked down at the paper. Her hands were steady.

“This is me,” she said. “Down to a little piece of paper.”

She didn’t read it aloud. Just stood there. Lips moving. Silent.

Then: “I’m ready now.”

I rose, smoothing my coat. The console readout was green.

“Would you like to activate the Sequence yourself?” I asked.

“No. You do it. You’re the specialist.”

I nodded and turned to the control panel. Keyed in the authorization code. A shimmer passed across the edge of the Party Room like heat haze. The depths of the arch glowed a deeper, opaque blue.

“Thank you,” she said. “For making it pretty.”

“You did most of it yourself,” I said.

Lita turned to face the digital sky. The light filter glowed golden.

“Here,” she said, stretching out her hand to me. “I think I do want someone to read this, after all.”

I took the paper and nodded at her, placing it in my pocket.

I pressed BEGIN FINAL CELEBRATION SEQUENCE.

I lit her candle. I cued her playlist. I closed the hatch behind me.

There would be a few minutes until she would be instructed to walk through the archway.

When the room was sealed, I unfolded the note:

I never did anything remarkable. I never made any meaningful relationships. I worked and had a decent job and was comfortable in life, but it wasn’t really enough. Not for anyone else. If my comfortable life felt hard, there wasn’t a single person in the world who cared to hear about it. In the end I had no one close enough. I had enough to live and do the things I wanted, but no one to really enjoy it with.

I was liked just enough by my family, my friends, my boyfriend, my coworkers, to be a person in the world. But what a meaningless existence. If I shared anything deeper about who I was, they just offered me advice. Here’s how you fit in. Here’s how you fix you. You are something that needs to be fixed.

I am someone who will always be told they need to be fixed by others, and I don’t think that I actually do. I think that what’s waiting for me through the arch is better than anything I could strive to achieve here. I hope this body will be put to great use, because I loved her very much. I thought she was enough.
I think what comes next is where I’m meant to go. That’s why my party is just for me, because I want to selfishly enjoy it. This is my last day and I finally get to let someone know how excited I am. I feel good. I want everyone to feel this excited about their lives as I do now for this. This is what I think my life was always supposed to lead to, and I’m ready.

Lita Navarro


I clutched the letter in my hand until the Sequence ended. Then I said goodbye to someone the world never really saw at all.

the silent car

Sarah’s commute spirals into a nightmare as she discovers fellow subway passengers eerily frozen, their vacant stares sending her into a panic. A haunting message awaits her: “Wake up.” Is it reality or a sinister dream?

Sarah slid through the closing subway doors just in time, glancing through the windows at the platform, happy to be heading home. The soft chime alerted the passengers that the train was leaving her stop. She sunk into the closest seat, feeling the cold plastic chill her legs through her jeans, sighing as she rubbed at her tired eyes with her palms. It felt good to finally sit down after such a long day. Her body lurched gently as she was transported through the underground tunnel. She had a long ride, even with the trains running express after midnight, and all she wanted to do was sleep. Her usual routine involved reading books to stay awake on her commute home, but even holding her book felt like too much work tonight.

The car was silent, but there were more people than she would have expected. There must have been some kind of event because usually, the only other people taking her subway this late at night were the kind that you had to worry about. But they looked like regular people, just a few stragglers making their way back home. Glancing around, she noticed the other passengers were seated quietly, probably just as tired as her. Their eyes were fixed blankly ahead on the seat in front of them or watching the dark, steady blur of the tunnel pass by outside of the train windows. Sarah settled in for the long ride, slumping deeper into her seat.

She opened her book, staring intently at the first paragraph. She willed the comprehension of the words to come to her, but the words just looked like symbols, refusing to form meaning in her brain. Sarah sighed, closing her book again. She glanced up, making eye contact with a middle-aged woman across the row.

Automatically, she turned her gaze away, but something felt off. The woman was still looking at her, gripping a handbag on her lap. Sarah snuck another peek, wondering what this lady’s problem was. Her eyes were open, but she was staring past Sarah, at the space where she sat, motionless. Feeling uneasy, Sarah leaned forward slightly.

“Are you… are you okay?” Sarah called out gently. The woman looked like a statue, not blinking or moving once. Urgency cut through Sarah’s tiredness.

No response. Sarah felt her cheeks get hot, as she tended to flush red when she was nervous. This was weird, in a bad way.

She turned to the next person she could see, finding a college-aged young man beside her. He wore baggy jeans, and had a big pair of earphones around his neck. His eyes were fixed forward with the same vacant stare. Her voice shook now. “Hello?”

A cold sweat flashed across the top of her lip. She swiped at it as she stood abruptly. The book that had been in her lap tumbled to the floor. Panicked, she made her way to the next person. She checked passenger after passenger, professionally dressed men and women, younger looking students or interns, even a woman with a little dog on her lap. Horrified, she found that the dog was frozen too. She started with polite taps and a low voice, and built up to violently shaking shoulders, pleading for someone to just say or do anything. She dreaded the same look on every face, present yet utterly absent. The lights were all on, but no one was home.

The subway hit a turn, and Sarah was propelled sideways. She grabbed a rail, gripping the cool metal and using it to help her keep her balance as she rushed to the end of the car. She shot a hand out for the door handle that connected her car to the next one. Her stomach dropped as the handle refused to budge. Locked. She pounded on the glass, but the next car appeared equally motionless.

   The train lights flickered, and for a brief moment, she could not see as the car was plunged into darkness. She held her breath as her heart hammered against her ribs, threatening to jump out of her chest and escape. When the lights returned, her skin crawled with dread. Every passenger was now standing, perfectly still, staring directly at her. She backed against the door, her mind spiraling.

   “Please,” she whispered. She wanted to close her eyes. She couldn’t, though. She was too afraid of what might happen if she looked away.

   Instead of words, she heard whispers. Soft at first, like the jostling and whooshing noises from the train in motion, but quickly growing louder. They filled the car, echoing unintelligible murmurs. The voices were angry, thick with accusation in her ears. What had she done to upset them?

“Stop!” Sarah cried. She jammed her fingers into her ears, plugging them. It didn’t help. The whispers grew louder and louder, judging her and taunting her and blaming her. For what?

Suddenly, the subway jolted sharply to the right, knocking her off balance. Sarah fell. She felt herself falling for too long, waiting for the impact of the dirty car floor.

She gasped sharply, jerking awake. Her head had slipped against the rail between her seat and the subway door. The train rocked as it slowed down, approaching her station.

She heard the familiar subway voice announce, “This is Franklin Avenue. Transfer is available to the 2 & 3 trains…”

Sarah glanced around, frantic. Passengers chatted softly, scrolling through phones or listening to music. Normalcy surrounded her.

Her heart still raced. She didn’t trust it yet, but had it just been a dream? She took deep breaths, trying to will her panic to go down. Be calm. You are safe, she thought. Just exhausted and stressed out from work. She gathered her belongings, relieved to see her book on her lap, not scattered across the floor.

As she stepped off of the train, her nose and lungs were assaulted by the belly, muggy platform air. The grimy realness of the familiar gross platform felt like it was bringing her back to reality. Her legs were a little shaky, but she was grateful to be moving, to be able to leave and put the strange nightmare behind her.

Sarah made her way out of the station towards the stairs. She climbed up and out, feeling her phone vibrate. She pulled her phone out of her pocket, squinting at the notifications. Someone texted her from an unknown number.

She opened the message and read: “Wake up.”

Sarah froze, her pulse quickening again. Anxiety surged back, sharp and biting. Her fingers trembled slightly as she glanced back toward the departing subway. She saw them again. Watching her. Through the windows, all of the passengers stood motionless, facing her. She felt the hairs on the back of her neck raise and waited until the train vanished into the tunnel and the people were out of view.

Sarah ran up the remaining stairs, emerging onto the street, desperate for the cool, open air and clarity. She continued to run, pumping her legs as the sense of unease lingered. She glanced repeatedly at the people passing by her on the sidewalk, wondering if they were going to have that haunting, identical expression on their faces.

She made it to her walk-up apartment, sprinting up four flights of narrow stairs, quickly unlocking the door, and shoving herself inside. Sarah double-locked the door and pressed her forehead into the wood as she looked out of the peephole. What if they followed her home? She waited, forcing herself to breathe as quietly as possible to see if they would appear at the top of the stairs on her floor.

“Come on,” she said out loud to herself. “Get it together.”

She opened her phone again, rereading the unsettling message: “Wake up.”

She typed back cautiously: “Who is this?”

The reply was instant: “You know who. You saw us.”

Her breath caught in her throat, fingers gripping the phone so tightly her knuckles whitened. Sarah tried to will the nightmare away, but the vacant faces, whispered accusations, and the locked subway doors all followed her.

She stumbled to her window, looking down at the street below. Cars rushed past, their honking sounds reaching her window. New Yorkers moved briskly at their quick walking pace, looking like dozens of little ants with places to be. As she stared, her reflection in the window twisted subtly. For a split second, her own eyes stared back, wide and vacant, mirroring the subway passengers.

Sarah gasped, jerking away from the glass. She collapsed heavily on her couch, pressing her shaking hands into the cushions to try and ground herself. There’s no way that was real, she told herself. Her vision was tunneling, blurred by exhaustion and fear. Her breathing came manually. In and out, she willed herself. In and out. In… and… out… In… And…

Submitted into Reedsy Contest #293 in response to: Start or end your story with someone looking out a car or train window….

meant to be

Caught between exhilaration and paranoia, a woman’s secret obsession blurs boundaries as she stalks a man, immersing herself in forbidden fantasy, grappling with the thrill and fear of being discovered.

I’m driving home and I can’t stop looking in the rearview mirror, making eye contact with myself.

I know your secret, I think to her, to the woman in the mirror with the dilated pupils.

We don’t usually pay attention to what other people are doing in their cars. Eyes on the road, and all that. But I think everyone can see me, and they all know. They know my lips are slightly swollen, like I had just been kissed for hours and hours and hours. They can tell my palms are sweaty. I might as well have a big neon sign on the top of my car, with an arrow pointing right at me.

I feel like a criminal. My heart is thump thump thumping in my chest, my cheeks just a smidge too pink for the weather. We’re having a warmer fall and I look like I am flushed from the cold. I blast the air conditioning in the car to try and clear my mind. I feel like I just got away with committing a murder and I am fleeing the crime scene. My heart can’t tell the difference between a high-speed chase and the fact that I just missed my turn because I am so oblivious to the world around me.

I don’t want anyone else to know my secret. It’s mine. I want it to be mine for as long as possible. But I also want to scream out the window and honk my horn and swerve my car and laugh and whoop. I want to run victory laps and phone the newspaper, this is front page news. I want to wrap up this silky feeling and weave it into gold like Rumpelstiltskin, and wear it proudly as a chain around my neck. I am just as greedy as the man in that story. I want all of this, as much of it, forever.

I park the car in my spot and notice brown leaves on my windshield from the big oak tree outside of his house. They must have fallen overnight. I have to clear them off before I drive anywhere else, because someone will know these are not the same leaves as the trees in front of my house. They’ll take one look at my windshield and just know that I wasn’t at my friend’s house last night like I said I was. She also has different leaves, and I wouldn’t want anyone to wonder.

I feel like reminiscing, so I think of the first time we met. We were at the grocery store, and the line was moving so slowly. He was in front of me, buying flowers. He kept sneaking eye contact at me, and then looking away as if I wouldn’t notice. I knew he wanted me to say something, and found it sweet that he was so shy.

“Lucky girl,” I said, nodding at the bouquet in his hands.

“They’re for my mom,” he replied, looking bashful. He glanced at the line in front of him, as if wishing it would move even slower so we could have our moment.

“Well,” I smiled, showing him how happy I was that he was single. “Lucky mom.”

They opened up another lane then, and he was forced to leave too soon. He gave me a passing smile as if saying how unlucky he was, after all. I met his disappointed look with one of my own. As he walked by, I caught the scent of him. He smelled like toothpaste and a musky cologne.

I sat in my car in the grocery store parking lot long after he left, gripping my purse with both hands. I needed to make sure I remembered every second of this moment. I repeated his words in my head until I could match his exact tone. Understated, but sure.

They’re for my mom.

I rolled the phrase over my tongue, whispering it under my breath until it felt like something I had said myself.

I didn’t follow him home that night. That would have been too much. Too soon. But the world is so small, and fate has a way of bringing people together. A few days later, there he was, standing in his front yard, tying up a bag of leaves. I had just been driving by, just happened to be on this street. Coincidences like this are what picture-perfect, big-screen movie romances are made of.

I slowed but didn’t stop. That would have been too obvious. Instead, I memorized the details: the color of his house (dark brown with white trim), the shape of his mailbox (arched, like a tiny chapel), the make and model and license plate number of his car (Honda, silver, a practical man). The way his white T-shirt clung to his back where he was sweating from the yard work. The pinkness of his neck from the sun that the big oak trees in his front yard couldn’t shield him from.

That night, I parked two blocks away and walked back, pretending I was just one of the neighbors going for a walk. I just wanted to see his living room. Did he have a real couch or one of those bachelor futons? What kind of life did he live when he thought no one was looking?

And now, weeks later, I know him.

I know that he leaves for work at 7:45 a.m. sharp, but he always sits in his car for an extra two minutes before pulling out, checking something on his phone. I know that on Mondays, he takes the trash bins to the curb and then stands outside for a few minutes, looking up at the sky like he’s waiting for something. I know that on Wednesday nights, he watches a movie alone, usually comedies, and he has such an underrated sense of humor.

I know he eats toast for breakfast.

I know he sleeps with one pillow.

I know he hasn’t brought a woman home in weeks.

Last night was the closest I’ve ever been to him.

I parked across the street for longer than usual, watching the shadow of his movement inside his house. He brushed his teeth at 11:03 p.m., I could hear the faint hum of his electric toothbrush through his slightly opened bathroom window. I pictured myself next to him, brushing my own teeth. Him wrapping his arms around me from behind, looking at us in the mirror and laughing.

Instead, I was in my car, huddled underneath a blanket I keep in the backseat for picnics I never go on. I chewed on my lower lip, my worst habit, and cracked the windows down to keep the glass from fogging up. The oak tree above me swayed, the wind whistling through its leaves. I whistled lowly with it, joining it in making music. I imagined that if he heard the sound, he would think it was the wind. Not me. Never me.

And then, something unexpected.

He stepped outside.

Barefoot, his T-shirt wrinkled from falling asleep on his couch again, he stood on his porch and stretched. I saw a flash of his hipbone as his shirt rose up. He exhaled a deep breath that I could almost feel on my cheeks. I shrank down in my seat, gripping the steering wheel. I breathed quickly and quietly, afraid to blink. He rubbed his hand over his face, looking out at the street like he knew something was there.

Like he could feel me.

For one electric moment, I thought he might walk toward my car. Knock on my window. Ask me what I was doing.

And I would have told him the truth.

Lucky girl.

I would have told him everything.

They’re for my mom.

But he only sighed, ran a hand through his hair, and went back inside.

I didn’t leave until the first light of morning.

Now, sitting in my own driveway, I trace my fingers over the brown leaves on my windshield, proof that I was there. Proof that he was close enough for the wind to carry something from his world into mine.

I bring a leaf to my lips and kiss its dry, crinkled surface.

I will go back tonight.

And maybe this time, he will see me.

Maybe this time, he will understand.

Maybe this time, he will finally let me in.

This story was originally submitted for Reedsy contest #290 under the prompt “Write a story about love without ever using the word “love.”

nothing personal

I wonder, off and on, but always, if anyone will ever know me. I like getting to know people, and I want to listen. I aim to be and I can honestly say I am perceptive. I notice. I remember. Yet I have been scratching my head trying to remember the last time someone said anything to try and really get to know me. I am not sure there exists yet a person who has ever asked me anything very personal. And I want to bring up the definition of personal as “of, affecting, or belonging to a particular person rather than to anyone else.” Not my politics, because that can be shared with someone else, not my job, which is not unique to me, not my preferences for food and movies because others share those as well.

Personal. Just one person has it. We all have things about us that are just ours to share, but how often are we sharing it? And how do you even go about sharing something like that? If I bring it up, I’m spotlighting myself and it feels borderline disingenuous because it just isn’t a very natural thing to give yourself away. Someone would have to ask, I think, for it to feel natural. Yet my frustration is in the one-sidedness where I frequently ask others to tell me more about themselves and receive beautiful answers, while I am unnasked on the other side.

I feel like I am bubbling inside with these snippets about me to share with someone who will never ask, never care to know. Like how I write all my Fs in cursive because I read an old love letter when I was in college and the woman in the letter was very well-loved by her suitor. She wrote her Fs in a very particular way and it might be silly but I thought maybe if I wrote my Fs like that forever, one day I would find someone who thought of me in that way too. I borrowed that little fragment of that woman’s life and brought it into mine and it took on new meaning for me. Training my hand to write every F that way took a while, but I made sure it became a habit and now it is part of my handwriting. I secretly hope for a love that can be appreciated centuries after it is over with every handwritten note I make, and that is something very personal. That is me, and nobody will ever ask but I wish someone would.

I think that’s why I write. It has to be because there is a chance that if I write things like that here, someone might see it. And they might see themselves in that too, or connect with it for a moment. And in that connection that’s what I’m longing for, to be known. I write to be known by others in the way people could not possibly know I have been waiting for them to, so I leave it up to chance. Maybe you see this, maybe you are just the right person to see this and you understand. I hope someone understands because I just don’t think I can be alone in this.

Do we just go around asking personal questions? Is that even crazy to ask for? It feels kind of like it is, right now.

you have to believe it all works out. then you have to make it work out.

The world has told you lies about how small you are. You will look back on this time and say, ‘I had it all, but I didn’t even know it. I was at the center, I could breathe in happiness, I could swim to the moon. I had everything I needed.’

Heather Havrilesky

I have a bone to pick with the idea of manifesting and letting go and saying if it’s meant to be it’ll be. If you go on TikTok, you can find thousands of videos of people explaining how to visualize what you want, and then just let it go and wait for it to happen, because the universe has got it. You are taken care of.

But the thing is, at the end of the day you are just left with you. There are people and there are obstacles and you have to navigate life but none of that really truly can affect you unless you let it. If you’re just daydreaming about great things happening to you, it’s all just going to stay in your head. The universe does not care that you want to move across the country and make six figures. The universe should probably care about bigger things than you. So who’s taking care of you?

I was so tired of waiting for good things that I became the good thing. I worked out when I didn’t want to work out. I studied for my classes, met with my groups, went to class, went to work, finished my work, finished my homework, wrote my papers, woke up at 5:30 a.m., saw my friends, did more of my hobbies, stopped being worried and just lived in the moment to see if I could make it feel good always, and finally I started seeing progress. I was not waiting for the universe any more, whatever that really even means. I was just being who I wanted to be, finally.

Did you know that at any time, you can just apply for a new job if you don’t like your current job? You can just start saving money and in six months you will have a savings. You can use that savings to move wherever you want and you can sell your car and never have to sit in an hour of traffic to get home ever again?

You can just do whatever you want to do because you are so small, the world does not care about you. But you are also the world. You will never ever know what someone else is truly thinking, but you will always know what you think. Why would you not listen to yourself? Why would you not get to know the wants, needs, hates, and ailments of yourself? You are everything you need to be wrapped up in a neat little person. You are the whole entire world and you are not.

Are you sad? What makes you not sad? Do you know? Figure it out. Figure out what makes you happy, angry, insecure, jealous, excited, scared, and everything else you could possibly feel, and learn how to counteract or live in it. Learn how to feel the bad less and feel the good more.

I was so worried all the time that I was just not ever going to be good enough, or smart enough, or strong enough to do the things that I wanted to do and it scared me to think I would get stuck wishing for more and missing out. I was worried because I didn’t have any real proof that I could do better – I’d never done it. I know how to mess up, I know how to ruin things, but I had very limited experience with exceeding expectations. I learned more about the things I wanted to achieve and I set goals so I would have the confidence to make it happen.

I wanted a great relationship where I wasn’t anxious and deferring to my partner and becoming my partner, and I wanted it to last a very long time. So I started falling in love with what I like again. I ripped my acrylic nails off and I started playing guitar again, read a new book from my favorite author, binge-watched the shows I like, listened to my favorite podcasts, cooked new recipes, made plans with my friends and reconnected with them, and at some point in there I stopped worrying. I saw my partner less but I had more to talk about with him, and I think he definitely appreciated that I just had more interests to bring to the table. I love you and I love all these things, and this is what makes me a complete person. I love you and I am me, and you love me for me, not because I am you, but we are also one. Like a Venn diagram with the middle part overlapping, that’s us. We’re two complete circles, but we choose to be together.

And once you believe you can just be different, you don’t really have a capacity to accept anything other than what you really want. I don’t want to feel bad, so I don’t let myself dwell on things that would make me feel bad. I give the benefit of the doubt to situations where I would normally get sensitive and feel prickly, and 99% of the time I forget about it in an hour. Will this really matter in 5 days? 5 weeks? 5 months? Where do I really want to spend my energy? Getting upset over something small, or just having a good time and continuing to feel good?

You have to believe it all works out. And then you have to make it work out. I’m not saying it’s easy, but it always feels better to feel better than to feel bad. Once you figure out what you want, and then how to align yourself with what you want (in the big ways and the small ways), you don’t have to wait for some Jesus Take the Wheel type of situation. You are your own Jesus and you take your own wheel. The universe does not make you a better person – you do. There are no miracles coming to save you except for the miracle of you finally snapping out of your own personal thought-prison and figuring your shit out.

on being unloveable or silent love

Sometimes you wake up and just feel a little unloved, unloveable. Nobody tells you they love you, but that doesn’t mean they don’t.

The first hour of your eyes being open and your brain running is really the moodsetter, the vibes o’ the day, if you will.

What are you thinking about? Who is in the room? Are they looking at you and are you lucky enough to wake up being loved? Has the cat kept your feet warm all night? Are your thoughts good? Are they bad? Why? What do you have to do today? What will you do first?

I was in a head-on car crash recently, and I was very lucky to not be harmed at all. A couple bruised knees and some brain fog, but overall, my face and body look the same and the bruises are gone. When I wake up now, it is usually to a thought about how I’m happy that I can keep waking up the same way I have always woken up. How the crash did not change my life. The synapses and neurons are still firing on all cylinders. I am lucky that I do not have more serious things to worry about or side effects that will never leave me.

Today I woke up thinking the same thing as yesterday, thinking I am very lucky to be looking at the person I am looking at and how I want to do this forever. I want to always look at this person in the morning and make him feel loved for the first moment of the day. I can’t help him in business, in his interactions with others, in what the world does to him, but I can love him every morning and hope that when he breathes in his first few awake breaths, they are full of the millions of tiny invisible hearts emanating from me. I can’t ask for them to be reciprocated or acknowledged, but I hope they are just felt somehow. We may not have much time in the day to offer each other soon as we get busier and grow and follow our dreams, but there will hopefully always be the morning moments. The grounding love, the constant love, the love that makes it so I can go confidently towards my goals with my head up and my mind focused.

Some days, like today, those tiny hearts are deflected, ignored. They evaporate. The vibe o’ the day is quietness, tinged with rejection. I think look at me! Look at me! Love me love me. If you would just say it I would just feel it. I physically try to pull it towards me and I am only met with resistance. I am quiet. We are quiet. I do my makeup silently and I think, I should go. I collect my little hearts off the floor and stuff them in my bag to bring home to my cat.

For mornings, I love podcasts and music and the sounds of faucets and the coffeemaker. I love getting tangled up and staying in bed to cuddle and laugh about what happened yesterday, and it is in hushed tones but it is the loudest thing in the world to me because it is all I can pay attention to at that moment. I would bang all the pots and pans in the house together to let the world know that in the face of the uncertainty I feel every day and not knowing where I stand in terms of anything, I am violently, ferally here and ready to fucking go. Whether it’s to just walk and get a coffee, to prepare for a big moment, or to do work or homework. I appreciate a strong or lovely first hour of my morning.

Today there was a trail of unloveableness that simply followed me wherever I went. I did homework for 8 hours and I learned and I took notes, I ate brownie brittle and I watched Grimm and I listened to requiems on Spotify. I held my cat hostage in my arms against his will and I could not shake the sticky and boggy feeling that nobody will ever know the depth of my love and I will never feel the reciprocation of it. I will work hard and I will become who I want to be but I may never hear someone say I love you. And I will be quiet and wonder which parts of me need to be traded, upgraded, or revised in order to be lovable.

I know I will go to sleep and tomorrow will be better, and in three sleeps I will forget this sticky unlovable feeling entirely.

But I can be this unlovable thing, and I can still be everything I want to be. I may not have it all, but I can do everything I want. And in spite of not being loved today, I loved. Maybe my place is not to be dipped upside down and kissed all over the face and be whispered lovely things to, but maybe it is to make someone else feel that way. Maybe I am not the wellspring, but the faucet that has to abide by the rules of gravity and give and give and give.

And even more groundbreaking and world-shattering and thought-provoking is – What if I am receiving love, but it is silent? I will never hear it but it will wrap itself around me like the softest, warmest blanket. It is a constant, always there, supporting me and protecting me. It is not little hearts emanating from him but a bubble that is so expansive around us that I cannot see the boundaries and I cannot hear the buzz of its energy.

I prefer to think that this is the case, as unlovable as I am today.

Exit Music (For A Film)

I am so many things, always inspired by a song or a book or a movie or the way someone said something or the way they didn’t or the things I want to do or the things I do not. I follow the beauty in life and look for symbols everywhere and find myself in them. I like that there are words that describe things in other languages that we do not have in English, so I learn them. I love the way people with different accents place their lips and tongues in foreign places to speak, and that it sounds differently from how I say the same words, and I find myself absently and not-so-absently memorizing those placements to recreate their sounds. I don’t like candles or perfumes that smell like flowers, but I could inhale a gallon of vanilla extract, and I would drink every drop if it didn’t taste like poison. I do like sunflowers, and feel the need to point them out if I see them. I like cold weather and blankets and fireplaces and trying to get my cat to talk to me. And you know what, he does most of the time. Not anything discernible but there are definitely inflections to his meows and mmmphs. I like to fill up shopping carts online and then exit out, but I do not like walking around the mall or going through rack after rack after rack of clothes at the store. I like to listen to one song on repeat sometimes when it really speaks to me, and I love lyrics maybe more than I love melodies, but sometimes I listen to music in different languages and so then I guess that doesn’t really apply. Today I woke up and listened to opera for two hours, and yes it made me cry. Today even though I really just wanted to lay in bed all day, and I could have gotten away with it too if it weren’t for my rotten fear of wasting my day, I still did an hour on my stationary bike and I tried not to feel bad about not eating as well as I should have yesterday. I have a disposition to look forward or back, and not entirely be in the moment so when I remember to stop and be HERE and NOW, I feel better. When I reign myself in from looking at what I have to do this week, this month, this quarter, and instead just focus on taking on today, I am happier. I am not the best at reminding myself, but lately I have been putting in much more effort to ground myself in the now now now. If I think about working out five times this week it seems daunting, but if I think about how I have 7 to 8:15 p.m. tonight to hop on the bike while I watch Arrested Development, I can do it. I am working on it. When I do not overwhelm myself, I think I am good to know. I am at my best when I am more careless instead of so fixated on perfecting things that are not entirely in my control. I want to find more moments of myself in that state of mind, and be able to rely on my responsible and serious self when I need to. I should show my love more.

I guess really barring some out-of-the-blue event, what’s going to happen and what is happening will do so whether I find ways to enjoy it or not, so why on earth would I not want to make the best of it all?

the form of love, or swans and black coffee

Look upon men and things with the inner eye, with its form and desire, never forgetting that the shadow they throw as they pass by, upon hillock or wall, is but the fleeting image of a mightier shadow, which, like the wing of an imperishable swan, floats over every soul that draws near to their soul. Do not believe that thoughts such as these can be mere ornaments, and without influence upon the lives of those who admit them. It is far more important that one’s life should be perceived than that it should be transformed; for no sooner has it been perceived, than it transforms itself of its own accord.

Maurice Maeterlinck

Swans. In theory, as in, in paintings, I think are beautiful. In real life, as in, at the park, I am terrified of.

They’re loud, and make a hjonk hjonk noise that is startling. I read somewhere that they can break a person’s arm with their wings. Imagine getting backhand slapped by a swan’s wing, and being like wow. they are such beautiful creatures. the creature of love.

I don’t like that the Hjonk Hjonk Arm Breaker 3600 is allegedly the symbol for love when there are much better things.

What’s better: the sound of the piano from far away or through a recording, or sitting next to someone playing the piano and hearing their fingers press the keys and their feet tap the pedals?

If it were to be turned into a questionable symbol, my love would not be a swan. I think it would be something like black coffee. An acquired taste.

If you are used to light, agreeable, creamy, sugary, often barista-made coffee, you might not have a taste for what I have to offer. My coffee is dark and opaque, slightly acidic, strong, and often comes in a big can with a seal that’s tough to open. It’s the kind of thing you probably don’t like initially because it doesn’t taste great right away, but at some point you might decide to wean yourself off of the cream and sugar.

I don’t think anyone ever starts off liking just black coffee, but many people create a habit out of drinking black coffee until they develop a palette for the base notes. Then it doesn’t just taste like an ash tray. It tastes smoky and rich, and maybe even a little nutty.

In presentation, it’s just ground up dark sand, but the real kicker is the smell. The smell of coffee grounds is referred to as “the bouquet.” I think that is fitting.

I wish sometimes my love was easy and graceful like the swan looks in pictures and is described in poems. It is not. It is complex and hard to describe unless you know what to look for, which takes time. Which is acquired through time.

In spite of that, I think it is worth it. I don’t mind not being a swan if it means that someone sees past the face value and the on paper and in paintings. If it means someone has gotten past the seal that preserves the coffee and uncovered the richness inside.

I think it is happening, or maybe has happened already. Does the coffee ever know when the seal is broken? Can it sense itself being known? I want to. I think that I am.

At the end of the day, it is what it is. A swan is just a mean bird, and coffee is just a spicy hot water. I am, too, just me, and trying my best to be that.

the act of unraveling

So much of my time is spent photographing others, writing on behalf of others, and using a different voice to portray a certain message. I have found it hard to really know myself because I focus so much on everyone else.

It is easy for me to pick someone apart by listening carefully and paying attention to their responses and the things they say and do not say. I am an expert understander.

It is not easy for me to put into words how I feel about things, maybe because I am not often asked. I am the asker.

Lately I’ve been asking myself how I can open up more and trying to mirror the vulnerability of others. I write so much, and sometimes feel so in tune with myself, but I don’t know if I have ever truly shared that with someone else. I don’t think I’ve ever voiced my deepest darkest thoughts and hopes and dreams and fears, and I don’t remember ever wanting in such a precise way before.

I have kept me close to me, worn my emotions and complexities like a tight second skin. I wrap myself around myself around myself around myself like a snake coiling and ready to strike in case someone tries to get too close.

But what am I protecting myself from? Where did I learn this behavior?

How do I put the fangs away and unravel myself, now that I want to let someone really know me?

This is what I’ve been trying to do, I am currently in the pursuit of being known by someone that I want so badly to know me. To like me for me, and isn’t that all that anybody has ever asked for?