gleepdiaries - Tumblr blog

[gleepdiaries]

my sister and i were always so close. then something happened to her and it ruined everything. and then she lost control. and she started to hurt me.

i didnt speak to her truly, as a sister, for about a year give or take.

on the other side, she has a boyfriend who will be her husband. she has her masters degree in education. she has a career. she has an apartment. she has new friends who i cant remember the names to.

were no longer girls. and i was so obsessed with how she hurt me that i missed it. we exist on the other side of a chasm. and i missed it. whatever it was. i was thinking about when i was 14 and she was 18, a freshman at penn state. i spent a night in her dorm room and she had big plans for us to go out to parties. i hadnt planned for that and wasnt ready to go to my first college party. instead i asked if we could go back to her dorm and just have a dance party like we used to. she let her friends go on and we went back and danced. she was a new version of herself that i didnt recognize but she was willing to turn back time, just a few months, to when we would dance in the kitchen.

i dont know if theres a way i could ask her to do that now. and im too proud to figure out how. is there a way to be on the other side of what i let divide us? i feel so differently than i did. im so embarrassed.

when grandmother died, and we went back home for her funeral, it felt like we were dancing in the kitchen again. and now in chicago, were in this unknown land. and i think she might get pregnant soon.

she wants sons. she wants them to play sports. i feel so entitled to be shocked by that but then i remember i missed the time where she figured out thats what she wanted. i missed the part of her twenties where she figured out who she is. i only have one sister.

when we were in ireland. we spent the nights away from our parents. (chainsmoking) at a gay club in dublin, i told her about my high school boyfriend and told her how we fell in love. i guess i never told her before. i told her i think i love the boy that i sleep with when i visit home. she challenged it. and i realized i dont love him.

in some ways, i do have my big sister again. i think i could be a good aunt even if she has sons. i can show them the talking heads and the lonely island. ill cross my fingers at least one of them is gay, please god let one of them be gay.

i cant believe i lived a year without my sister. i miss her everyday. i wish we could sleep in the same bed again. she told me the night before her wedding well sleep in the same bed. and ill do the same. no matter what.

[gleepdiaries]

my dear friend and i sat at a hotdog joint off of ashland around 11:30 saturday night. we were shocked by the price of a chicago hotdog and fries at this place (5.50!!!) we had plans to go to parsons to try their "pickle margaritas and pickle beer".

she tracked my location to see how late id be running and saw i was in the bus right next to her. i hopped off and we laughed at what a perfect and convenient coincidence that had been. parsons was closed for a wedding.

we moved to wills. recently, i had been on a horrible date there where we both got too stoned and he was on his phone. i looked at the table as we walked by. the patio was packed. the heat radiating off of everyone was even hotter, and more humid than the chicago spring weather we started with! one old style and a high noon! we became friends at this bar. when we were coworkers we grabbed drinks with a now stranger but at the time, other coworker. we chirped about which table we sat at. and i asked her about the boy shes been seeing. i think she thinks she may marry him too.

we moved to codys. another patio. another old style and high noon. this was not our crowd. but we have fun. we play a game of who is hot. we find correlations between the people we find hot. they look like they love their mom. strong eyebrows. well dressed. we talk about our futures, what we want and who we want to be. how will we get there.

we planned on getting hot dogs as we walked to codys. we talk about the dead beetle we saw on the walk over. we discuss women's right and freedom to use clothing as a form of self expression. and we bonded on how our outfits have always been intentional. we explained why we wore what we did. i paired a black button up with a tennis skirt patterned with basketball players. i wore tube socks and sneakers to tie it all together. she wore a halter top to embrace the new warm weather. with a cardigan as a precaution from recent catcallers. i wish we got pictures from this night.

we spend so many nights like this that i lose count. we can mark this one as significant, we were ringing in the new warm weather! the saturday nights where we time when the busses may arrive are behind us! we have earned a night as lovely as tonight! may each saturday be as quaint and still as important as this one.

[gleepdiaries]

i am so lucky to have friends that i bump into on the crosswalk. to have enough friends that i try to legitimize a way of fitting everyone at my dinner table. i am so lucky to beat myself up for forgetting to invite someone. and i think they love me the way i love them.

[gleepdiaries]

i was walking through an arts street festival with three friends yesterday. we bounced from one candle salesperson to another. after passing around mason jars of chai tea scented candle wax, we turned at the sound of a family kissing a baby. the mama and the papa would count down from three then swoop in and give their baby a million kisses. it was the sweetest part of my week. i cant believe i get to see joy like that for free. i cant believe a stranger has found a life partner and can create so much joy for themselves and others. could i do that? i stopped in my tracks to watch that family. could i do that to someone like me? i would like to. i hope i can. did they see us watching? would i want someone to watch something so beautiful and loving if i could even be a part of such a thing? i want to be in love. i want to create love. i want to be loved like a kid in a stroller again. i want to share my love with someone else. i think i have a lot of it actually. i think i could be a part of something like that. i think i deserve something like that.

[gleepdiaries]

i currently live with my best friend.

i have said i love her since we were 13 but i have such a deeper understanding of why i love her and somehow its so simple. were so different but we both end up on the couch together at the end of the night. once we talk about our days, and what we thought about during lunch, and which bus we took home, i get to ask her if she cries on her birthday and if she knows how to play an instrument.

our apartment is messy but my tote bag lays on her purse like my head lays on her shoulder.

we put our moms on speakerphone.

last year, i had a roommate who didnt talk to me. he would go straight to his room without turning on a light. i can tell if she is home whether or not i see the ceiling fans light on through the window in our courtyard. i think she does the same when she sees ive left the lamps on.

we wait up on the couch when the other goes on dates. half of the fun of my dates has been coming home to talk about it.

i feel so lucky. i wonder if we will fight. i wonder what well fight about. i wonder if shell kiss a boy i like. i wonder if a friend of mine will say something that hurts her feelings. i cant fathom how simple this all is. i guess in a way, im waiting for the shoe to drop. im so jealous of her previous roommates. i cant believe they have been having this much fun the whole time.

i love her so much. shes my best friend. i would make her a million more cups of coffee. i would replace a million more toilet paper rolls. i would pull out a million more clots of her blonde curls and my brunette hair out of our drain.

its the beginning of fall, our windows are open to the courtyard. i wonder if our neighbors want to know what were laughing about. it is one big sleepover except we have work in the morning.

[gleepdiaries]

after walking around in the humidity, i began to rush home to get a glass of water. while i was walking down the street of bars, a man applauded a musician. i turned to see who he was clapping for and made eye contact with a lady in the bar. as i turned away she turned too. i was so dehydrated and delirious i didnt notice it was literally my reflection. i don't remember myself looking like that. but sometimes i don't remember that im grown now. i thought that lady in the bar was so beautiful though. her eyes were bigger than i thought and her eyebrows really stood out on her face. she looked very content with life. she looked like an adult.

i think about how others perceive me all the time. im so worried about my weight and my makeup and my hair and my posture and how i walk. making eye contact with her, i worried she saw a flaw in any of those things. maybe i wasnt dehydrated, maybe i was too worried about myself to even notice that was me. the thoughts paused for just a split second when i laughed to myself at the fact that she was me.

was it the fact that i was caught in a whirlwind of concern or was it the fact that i wasnt wearing my glasses. not sure. but happy i bumped into her.

[gleepdiaries]

i have spent the past few days considering my femininity. i exist as a women and feel like one by association but i wouldnt be one without being considered one. my womanhood is given to me. but i am good at being a woman, i stand up for whats right, my empathy seeps out of me, im a good cook. but i do a bad job at being a girl.

theres some physical attribute to being a girl that i cant grasp. i dont know how to put on clothes that a girl would wear. i talk too loud and its crass. i cut my own hair because i wouldnt even know what i want my hair to look like. i dont know how to smile for pictures. my body hair grows like crazy.

when i try to tell people i feel out of step from other girls, im told the things i think i should be are unrealistic anyway. but the expectations to be those things are still there. boys dont talk to me. people ask for my pronouns but let me know that they never know now a days. my hair still grows on my chin.

i think i will be such a great old person because i know how to be a woman but for right now girl hood fucking blows. and it makes no fucking sense. i dont fucking get it.

[gleepdiaries]

moments this week i want to write down so i wont forget they happened

outside a bar with my friend and an exboyfriends best friend who has become my friend, we shotgunned beer cans we had leftover from the party we came from. we sprayed each other with cheap beer by accident as we tried to puncture them with keys. i was drunk but i think i sometimes forget how much fun i have.

my coworker and i have gotten so close we now stage fight each other while there are customers in the shop. they like to stage fight in a more superhero movie stylization whereas i prefer the wwe method. (hulk hogan accent on occasion)

i spent the day with my best friend and we met up with friends for lunch. talked about how war would be nonexistent if women were in power. split an ice cream sundae while talking about boys. smoked a joint. saw a man on a bike that was probably 15 feet tall. made our uber driver laugh because we were gabbing so hard. found out which landmark is exactly half way between our apartments.

reopened my internal dialogue whether i like the high fidelity show better than the movie or not.... (undecided)

my life is so full of little joys

[gleepdiaries]

i want to tell my coworker that theyre basically one of my best friends but its too embarrassing to admit

[gleepdiaries]

i remember letting someone into my life and defending them when they were wrong. they would tell me things they thought of me and i believed them. i think the time between then and now has taught me to believe in karma. the universe shows me his balding hairline when i begin to believe the things that were said. but i dont have a material advantage over him. i think i just have changed. ive grown up, learned to struggle to pay rent, cultivated friendships that i trust, formed a loving and kind relationship with myself, learned to say no and stand up for myself. i dont know if he has those things but i do and theyre all so wonderful it allows me to allocate my power into those experiences rather than the experiences ive had with him. i am not above saying i hate him, i wish him no peace. and i dont forgive or forget. he has given me a frame of reference. for what i deserve, for who i really am, and for how i treat others.

[gleepdiaries]

like so many, i used to struggle to see a life past 21. id tell myself that was when id finally do it. because i couldnt see any further than that. now only two years past my original expiration date, i think the joy i experience seemed so unrealistic. sometimes it still does. how would have i predicted the joy id feel by trying to make enough room for an extra unexpected guest at my dinner parties. how could i predict the comedy of the dates i have been on. how could i have known id live next to a lake, with my windows open to invite the breeze in. i have learned to let in and let go of so many things in just these two years. i cant imagine not living those two years. i cant see past 25. but i cant wait to see 26,27,28 and dare i even say..my thirties. i wonder if ill look back on these past two years and be grateful that i stuck around. i hope these two years become meaningless and just the time i was 22 and 23. although i cant imagine a life with more joy than this, i have a feeling i have a lot more in store.