my head is everywhere. i haven’t written in a while. don’t have the energy to detail the happenings of each day when most of them keep draining me. don’t have the time to ponder my own hopelessness when i feel so obligated to heal someone else’s.

i have a girlfriend now. this is a strange thing. i've never had one before. never believed myself capable of being loved. but i met her one day in july, at an intersection i don’t usually cross. she had a bag of ben and jerry’s in her hand. she offered to share some with me. and that was it. here i am now, every day, waking up to these eyes that tell me they’re the most beautiful thing they’ve ever seen. i wake up to a hug and a smile in place of that untouched half of my too-big bed. we share clothes, we share thoughts. we are almost one person.

things are so intense. things are moving so quickly. but it feels so right. for the first time in my life it feels so right to act on bizarre instinct, to dive into her arms without fear. i have this constancy now, i no longer peer into the great unknown and feel my heart twist in my chest. i can face the future with a familiar hand to hold.

i turned 20 last week. feared the day for years. for what? there’s no real significance between one arbitrary day and the next. some imaginary divide between childhood and the rest of my life. the day before, i played twin fantasy for the first time in a few months. these teenage hands will never touch yours again. i cried so hard. there’s so many things i haven’t done yet. so much i never got to do. does it matter? would it feel any different if i just did them now? it wouldn’t. age is cliche. but a lap around the sun is a lap closer to death. my age reminds me of my years, how they dwindle. makes me wonder where i land on the timeline of my life.

i took her home with me for thanksgiving. couldn’t do much but work, endless work. 5 unbroken hours of studying on the train ride there. on sunday, we churned out an assignment worth almost nothing for 12 hours straight on a couch in my grandpa’s basement. broke once to eat turkey, once to eat birthday cake. cried so hard that night. she held me, kept trying to distract with babbling and random topics. she asked what my favourite song was. couldn’t tell her that i don’t like music anymore, that all my favourite songs remind me of him. she asked where i’d like to go on our next date, saying we’d do a picnic in the park. i cried thinking about her dead cat, how she used to take her to the park too. i worked on the train back. not that i could do anything else at that point. had no energy to write, to think, to enjoy music, to look out the window at the blurriness and feel things. i think that weekend broke us both.

she’s been bad since her cat died. kept saying the same thing at the vet, over and over. i’ll see you soon. death has been on our minds ever since. she writes me letters, over and over again, just rephrasing the same few thoughts each time. i came over one night to find two on her desk, from separate days. put them in my backpack and planned to burn them. the day we came back on the train, i walked her home from the station and her dad was sitting on the front porch. she told me that if he hadn’t been there, that if i’d left her there alone, she would’ve done it then.

it’s shocking, being on the other end of this. holding her life in my hands. i always thought i’d be the one to die first. but she’s painting it so vividly for me, what it’ll be like to have to stay alive after seeing the people i care about disappear forever. on tuesday, i sat alone on a bench outside the building i had class in, and i saw those letters, right there in my backpack. so i read them, just to hear her words. once, twice, probably 3 times. i don’t know. i couldn’t absorb them much. i didn’t go to class. went home feeling nothing. sat on my bed feeling nothing. she came over, and brought me flowers and chocolate, and i sobbed like it was the last time i’d ever see her. clung like i’d never touch her again, breathed like she fed my lungs oxygen. we stayed like that, attached on my couch for 3 hours as i sobbed, endlessly, relentlessly. she held me. it wasn’t enough. i needed to believe she would hold me forever.

i couldn’t take it. i asked her to promise she’d stay. she said she’d already made another. is it selfish of me to need her to keep living? in this cruel world, this world that doesn’t give a shit about the life that inhabits it, is it selfish? i don’t want her to ever feel pain. i don’t want anyone to. i have so little control, so little grasp over change. i was wrong about constancy. i won’t have her forever. i can’t save her from everything. so how do i let myself love someone so deeply, so fully, knowing one day i won’t have them anymore? how do i place myself in the hands of fate, knowing they’ll eventually tear me apart? i want to feel like i have things without ever dealing with loss, to feel full without ever feeling empty. but that’s not how this works. it’s the consequence of loving so hard. i’ve always known that.

not much else has been going on lately. i fill my free seconds with routineless obligation so i don’t ever have time to think. it mostly works, till the thoughts seep in regardless. same stuff that’s been in there for years, months; never replaced, just added to. some have been about him, which is an unwelcome surprise. i don’t want to think about him. it doesn’t matter. i still do. i have to be honest with myself. i can’t keep shoving shit in the closet, under the bed, in the cracks between the floorboards because i don’t want to look at it. because i don’t want to remember i have it, this past that still brings me too much pain. i look at you now and hate you for what you did to me. but no, that’s not right. because he didn’t do this. i did. i look at him now and hate him for what i did to me. i hate that looking at him reminds me of the worst parts of me. i hate myself for hating him. i hate all of it. i must untie these knots that bind me to hatred, no matter how deeply my skin still burns. i have to forgive, somehow.

i can’t be near him most days. i can’t be near anyone that’s near him. it’s lonely. i feel alienated. it feels like high school. i don’t speak and i fix my gaze on spots to avoid looking real. i pretend i’m nothing but legs and arms that walk around, a head that twists from side to side and eyes that shift nowhere. but it’s hard to pretend i don’t need anyone anymore. i’m so different now, after having let people finally see me. i don’t think reverting is the solution. reverting to that thoughtless person, pushing through life all alone. i need people, and that doesn’t make me weak. i suppose it doesn’t have to be them. making new friends would be like admitting i’ve lost the old ones, but i guess i have no choice. it’s time to start over, wipe the slate clean. break the mirror, sweep up the glass. wring out the towel, hang it to dry. mop up the sludge, pour the bucket down the drain. i can’t stay put in a past that knew me as someone else.