This past year I learned that I have more weaknesses than I originally identified. I’m dependent on praise. I let others make decisions for me. I let things go too quickly. I don’t stand up for myself. I do what others want first and foremost. I stopped listening. I see things that need to be changed and look the other way. There was a three month period of time when I felt like everything I deemed a constant was removed. My perspective on the world changed. New Jersey had become brighter and more harsh. The water I drank seemed too strong, the heat more oppressive. Had I always been unable to breathe during the summer? Days were spent locked into Princeton with only thoughts, jogging routes, Netflix, and half-read books to sustain me. It seemed like I was always hungry and alone. Surprisingly, running on emptiness fed a part of me that I had never really wanted to find. I learned that being by myself was okay, even if I didn’t choose it. Epiphany: it is only when we have nothing that we respect the storage of dried optimism rations within. I churned out some of my best poems, I saw what my body could accomplish athletically, and I admired the little things: the feel of a cool pillow case after a particularly long day, a hot cup of cocoa on a July night as I watched the sun melt over DeAngelo’s roof. I left Princeton being used to the sound of my own thoughts, the silence of empty hours, and the agony of knowing that I had miscalculated where I would be. August came and I was back in Maine and all too suddenly I was thrown into the noise of others, the blaring of the whines and complaints was foreign to my deaf ears. There was too much information, too many people and I overloaded, and stuck to doing the bare minimum to preserve what was left of the newfound relationship with myself. September and October were bare and embarrassing. I was a hollow needle pinching the cold vein of an embalmed hare. Nights were spent trying to get a fix on shallow conversation and cheap kisses that felt unnaturally good. Masked and chilly, I was a proud vagrant. It wasn’t until a trip to Maryland for a friend’s twenty-first birthday that I realized how deep into that famous D-word depression I was in. I listened to a fresh copy of Mylo Xyloto on borrowed headphones and listlessly gazed at the Delaware Memorial Bridge, aware that the guy who refused to love me was never going to let me go.
I was chained to a body that refused to decompose.
The following weeks were spent crying empty tears on my roommate’s futon. I threw Patrick Bateman smiles at innocent bystanders and stared at my ceiling while my legs sliced in and out of Pilates motions. I wasn’t doing anything. November was when I turned my pruned mouth out of the shallow puddle I was drowning in and decided to feel what was being asked of me. On my twenty-first birthday, the friend who had been both the bane and sweetness of my existence moved towards something concrete. I couldn’t tell if it was a last-ditch attempt to save something that was almost beyond repair or if it was what his dueling eyes truly wanted. Cue more nights spent on the futon because I was uncertain that I could believe in our matching desires. December brought understanding, trust, and a minor leap into something. The new year was welcomed by a pair of well-known lips meeting mine in what will probably be the only conventional aspect of our relationship. Six months of hell led to a quiet union, a pastoral portrait of the modern heart’s acerbic indecision.
This is a lifelong commitment to progress. I’d like to move beyond the phase of blocking out others, go back to focusing on the meaning of words, stop doubting the sincerity of emotions, and respond. I want to stop looking at other females and being repulsed about the differences between us. I have never been one to dislike myself and yet I’ve doubted my own beauty, my own worth. This self-doubt has caused me to tear down bold women and bury solutions to the self-destruction. I want to re-own the projects, roles, and passions that I have. I want to push myself to read more, to expand my vocabulary, my know-how of language, film, pop culture, and coffee. I want to accept that some of my bangs won’t stay where I’d like them to be. I want to look up the correct spelling of words that make me cringe. I want to help others grow into the people they strive to be. I want to let contentment be an option again.
say something that makes breath burn a little more
sweeten the tea of soaked ambitions & memory stills
with effervescent acceptance of nights that writing calls to me
like the friend who cups my elbow and guides me to sleep.
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