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[heirloomcolour]

Peak

Then. Right then! At the height of your youth, the oldest you have ever been. Every peach you taste is sweeter and juicier than the one before. You travel with a mismatched troupe of fledglings, not much unlike yourself. Days are dreamy, days are long, days are overflowing with memories. Memories which make you question your sanity a decade or so following. Memories that feel like walking on broken glass. Memories that feel like throwing up tequila off of balconies. Memories that feel like flunking out of college. Memories that feel like unrequited love. Memories that feel like loss. But most of all? Memories that remind you what it felt like to feel fully alive. Unabashedly afraid to be alive, wearing a bleeding heart on your sleeve, having loose lips and untrained limbs. Driving too fast and too often, experiencing a great many firsts, enduring relationships and jobs and times that felt never ending but did, in fact, end. Oh, but then the peaches become mealy and dry. No unbridled juice slips down your face like a miniature Niagara diorama. Your body begins buzzing like tv static from your childhood: gray, noisy, zaps of light. Your mind gets mushy like an Oreo left in milk far too long. You can’t remember why you are here, how you are functioning, why all of the fruit is dry. Your zest shrivels and your constitution quakes. And yet, there is some hope. Hope, an ending. To your suffering. This crisis of feeling so much of nothing, halted by merely crossing paths with someone who somehow reminds you. Of how juicy a peach can be, of how fast you can drive, of how nice it feels to smile. And you climb up that hill, with your new little troupe, much less mismatched than before. And you wonder, as you look back at it all- does it all come with a price? One that you would pay again and again and again just to capture the feeling of the sun shining on your face, the sweet juice dripping down your face, your face twisted up in a real smile you don’t need to force. You begin to see that now, right now is the best time of your life. Not then, back then. Now, at the peak of your diminishing youth. Nearing the beginning of a new era. Remembering that those days were free spaces on your bingo card. Remembering that you longed to feel this way on all of those days. Remembering that you wanted this love all of those days. And now, you’ve got it. Today is that day, it’s today. And as you choose to embark on the beginning of your new era, your advancing age- maybe you should remember to consider these things. These floods of feelings, and memories, and longing for meanings. Remember how sweet she makes peaches taste, remember how she takes the burn out of the sun, remember how she reminds you to feel all the things. Remember how she reminds you to feel alive. Remember how she reminds you to simply exist. Remember how much you should remind her the same. Remember how much you should remind her that you wouldn’t do any of this without her. Remember how much you should remind her that she is the best thing you’ve ever known. The sunniest sun, the funniest joke, the juiciest peach, the fastest car, the deepest depth. Remember to remind her that she is everything.

[heirloomcolour]

Term

Finality is a strange beast. Perhaps one best left to make its mark. The weight of finality can be crushing. The anticipation of finality can be utterly debilitating. How do we fill the space between that anticipation and its ultimate outcome?

In its wake, I have lived what feels like an entire life. In the pure mellow dramatic delusion I have cocooned myself in, I assume it is more life than most people have lived at this age. Whether or not it actually is, I assume my therapist would kindly nod in agreement. But what has this monumental weight of anticipation impacted in this lifetime?

Over this 10 year period I have lost many unrequited lovers. I have held no fewer than 10 different jobs strung along with lengthy disruptions of unemployment periods. I have claimed healthy Covid-era unemployment benefits. I have been fired from multiple jobs and simply walked out or walked away from multiple others. I have endured the emotional taxation of working in a family business. I have lost the custody of the same cat twice. I have lost my very first cat to a preventable and treatable issue. I have lost both of my childhood, family dogs within 2 years of one another. I have lost a parent before I had time to correct our estrangement. I have lost a great many internal battles and drifted apart from most of my friends. I have smoked no less than 800 packs of Camel Turkish Royals. I have run dry no fewer than 100 disposable vapes. I have tried countless drugs, and repeated use with many. I have tried 5 anti-depressants and 2 anti-anxiety medications. I have gone through 4 therapists. I have gained 120 pounds and developed arthritis in my knee. I have acquired numerous health issues that lead to chronic pain. I have stolen money from family members and I have asked them all for large sums of money- as well as some remaining friends. I have picked up and dropped multiple hobbies and interests. I have killed hundreds of dollars of houseplants. I have never paid a security deposit for any pets at any rental. I have maxed out and charged off multiple credit cards. I have taken on over $50,000 of student loan debt. I have refused to seek the awful but necessary care of a gynecologist due to irrational fear. I have skipped countless dinner parties, birthday parties, outings, girls trips, job interviews, class meetings, and work shifts. I have avoided opportunities in the stifling fear of rejection, failure, and heartbreak. I have burned bridges with the frequency and intensity to light up the entire metropolitan area.

But do you know what else this anticipatory weight has led me to? An intensely deep and committed partner that meets me exactly where I am every day. An opportunity to adopt 6 cats in total. An opportunity to foster 2 dogs. A massive trip to Las Vegas to see Adele live in concert. A trip to the Grand Canyon and the Hoover Dam. An opportunity to continue family traditions in taking trips to Disney World. A first plane ride and so many thereafter. A great many couples trips to cities all over the East Coast and Midwest. A variety of concerts and farmers markets. An abundance of circumstances and happenstance to meet a great many individuals that impacted my life in big and small ways. An unwavering support and acceptance from my family to live as my authentic, lesbian self. A space to explore my gender identity with myself and friends and family. A thousand glass bottled Mexican cokes. An extensive educational training on wine, spirits, and beer. A relationship with my sibling that so many would be envious of. An ending of a 12 year friendship that became overburdened with toxicity. A space to heal from that relationship. A space to write my sappy feelings on Tumblr about my life happenings. An abundant garden to provide fresh produce to my family and sweet strawberry snacks to my childhood family dog. A simply infinite collection of cherished memories with my pets, passed on and living. An Associate's Degree. A great deal of movies at the Indie theatre. An in-numerable amount of delicious meals in a variety of cities, genres, and price ranges. A few tattoos and a nose hoop. A brand new car. An abundance of new interests and hobbies that persisted. An abundance of opportunities to make priceless memories with my family and lover. An abundance of life lessons. So was the weight of finality so crippling?

So what if it was crippling? I was not silenced, I was not defeated, and I certainly will never be damned. I have rejected "no" as "final answers" long enough to know there is so often very little permanence in finality. I have beat on with such intensity for so much of the decade that I know there is very little weight I cannot manage. And I know, in this moment, one very certain finality.

This decade has offered nothing short of any of its promises. So many countless hours toiling and yearning for some finality. Some peace of mind in that I was not spinning my wheels. That I was not walking in circles. That I was not paddling upstream for proverbial "nothing". Maybe it is still too early to accept the prize, to count my chickens before they hatch. But, I think, I am nearing the corner to finality and I could not be prouder or any more exhausted.

May 19 is the final point in this particular saga. I am ready, I am done, I am, at long last, the victor.

[heirloomcolour]

Fluctuation

It's hot and cold and humid and dry. The weather is little besides unpredictable. Sunset meets us far too early each and every shift. Feelings don't come like the tide but they do smother like a wet, weighted blanket. Nothing could be hazier, no waters could be more muddied. And here I am, at the eye of the storm. I sense the wreckage all around me but serene nothingness right in front of my face. Left to wonder if it all means anything or just the opposite. Left to decide if this sacrifice was worthy, if this package of deluxe heavy feelings is worth luxuriating in. Working towards a flimsy goal for a decade of my life feels extremely short-sighted and foolish- we can all admit we were more filled with naivety a decade ago. Now, though, I wonder-no, hope that this could not have all been for big, bad, ugly, all-consuming, nothing. Surely if that were the case, some divine intervention would have come down to smite me. Something could've, would've quaked me to my core and shaken me off this path- and yet, here the fuck I am.

So if this is right then why does it feel so scary? Why does it feel like the goal is nearing completion but every part of my being is exhausted from simple respiration? I can rattle off my silly little questions like machine gun rounds and it still doesn't answer the one I'm avoiding most.

What next?

[heirloomcolour]

Blocks

Living takes the life out of it. How can we enjoy the sunshine if we will burn? How can we enjoy a forest when we can only see one stately gymnosperm at our feet? How can I remember who I planned to be when I’ve had the dust beaten out of me like an antique area rug? 

I somehow cannot remember anything of my young adulthood, save a few minute details. The extremity of it, I avoid at any cost. More even-keeled features shine out, rather than freely bleeding any emotion on my lips. So often I am convinced none of it happened, but how could it not have? I remember the damp coldness on my nose and finger tips and the brim of my baseball cap at 6 in the morning. I remember resting my sore and soggy feet on the antique couch as I slowly drew in the thick and heavy smoke of an indica. 

Perhaps I was always so consumed in life that I never paused to consider removing myself from the living of it all. I fought the living tooth and nail at any chance I could. Of course it led to some unforeseen resistance. How do I get that part of me back? Surely damaged like an old cardboard box but, I assume, still whole and standing. What danger could exist in coming back down to my body and resuming my life? What danger can truly exist in automating the living, if I must indeed continue the living? 

I was once a young adult; I did self discovery, I had my share of fights and resistance and obstacles. Now I am left with all of it that hasn't been dealt with or dismissed. I shan't forget it all happened. Whatever I did a decade ago still happened and I am still here. Perhaps the words are all still there and the meaning is thinner, but I can recall it if I deem so appropriate. 

In a strange sense, I never much felt up for the living. I have always preferred the life of it all. Even more strange that I’ve forgotten about that element existing within this dissociated jail. I’m sure there was some reason I began this dissociation journey but I can’t quite place my finger on any event necessarily. 

I’m sure that once the life was drained out of me, when things started moving and shifting out of control, I began living. I began muddling through the muddiness of it all. I began skipping showers, skipping shifts, skipping events, skipping all the life I once knew. All to make up for the heavy weight of living. I never quite learned how to blend the appropriate amount of something into another. Too much rum to coke, too much sugar to milk. Perhaps an oversight on my behalf to blending the life with the living. 

Perhaps I've wasted time living and lost some life in the mean time. Perhaps a new leaf is unfurling, if I can allow it. Dissociation ends today, I want the life back instead of only the living.

[heirloomcolour]

[heirloomcolour]

Foresight

828 days ago we were in the throes of new love. Jovial, floating through time and space on the plump and pink clouds of the dawn. Each day provides me a small delight, knowing that love can indeed transcend moods, coordinates, and timelines. And to think, perhaps neither of us knew unconditional love to be achievable in this realm. Attainable, tangible love can beat in the heart of a dulcet yet insolent being sitting beside you on that green couch. On the blue couch. On the brown couch. On the pink couch. She can roll around in your bed and fluff your pillows and get the sleepy removed from the cats eyes and noses. She can make you matcha lattes and gynecologist appointments. Nothing can shake her, as nothing can shake you in the power band of this unconditional love. Genuinely, I cannot wait to see what our future unfolds. As far as I can see, travel, comfort, and joy are in our path.

[heirloomcolour]

[heirloomcolour]

Digression

You will have to forgive my utter absence. Hopefully it is forgivable. I was pleasantly surprise to did these sweet little posts here. “Little” in length, jumbo in sentiment. Here we are, rounding the corner on 3 years. Somehow it feels like it’s just been a few months. Of course, we’ve spent a great deal of time getting to know one another. How our skin feels in the morning, how thirsty we get at 4am, how many cat hairs we can handle in our masks before they need to get the lint roller. We know who’s hand goes on top, we know who drags their feet in settling into a place, we know who is happy to get along. All in all, Basil, we lasted. We are lasting. The final breath of a curse shouted to the heavens for this to be so fleeting that I found myself destroyed, desertified. As you mentioned recently, fuck you- we made it. And we are making it every day. I can’t wait at all to see what the long haul has in store. I love you, B.

[heirloomcolour]

My body hurts and my heart is heavy. I can’t picture tomorrow, the next few hours, the next few minutes. I’m not being a good partner, I don’t know what to do. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.

[heirloomcolour]

16#

There’s a 16 pound hole in my body, your loss gnashed my very flesh from its holding. Your velveteen softness against my fingertips, resting against my arm, sat to my side in full length along the bedside. Your physical being has left me and been away for almost 2 weeks. I feel broken in your wake, and as if I have failed the mortal body in which your soul was housed. I look for little glimmers of you every day, awaiting your soul to find me in another physical form. Hopefully the soft and sweet body of another mortally immortal purring feline friend. I miss you, Buddy- and I cannot wait to embrace another that reminds me of you. And most of all, I can’t wait to be reunited fully with your beautiful soul on another astral plane.

[heirloomcolour]

Pencil

Make your mark heavy and dark. Or those fine graphite lines filling college lined, loose-leaf paper. Making a case for using the wooden ones/ the necessity in simplicity. The feeling, overall, of wood on wood- of tree to tree, it's something of comfort yet wonder. The way a solitary tree could be used-- to come together to write the wages of war and aftermath of heart-break. That drawing a mark into shapes and phrases as I wander across the sheet of paper- an open canvas- release thoughts from deep within. Where I can write, perhaps not even clearly or eloquently, that I need to marry you. That touching your skin at dawn's first break is electrifying and grounding in the same breath. That knowing you are coming home, that knowing we are going to puppy training class. That knowing we will be hanging multi-colored Christmas lights with retro sized bulbs from the eaves of our 30s craftsman home. That knowing quinoa will rarely make an appearance on the menu, that knowing we can always exclaim "kale yeah". Applying graphite pressure to these pages is the purest and truest and most grounded thing I can do to express the ways of the world and the ways I love you. Natural beings, we are and so the trees are as well. Their products the very reason love notes exist. I read in an old greeting card once that "If it's not worth putting on paper, it's not worth saying." My love, these words are bursting out of me. These feelings, flooding from my heart, filling my mind with you, you, you. Each land on the paper, guided by that wooden stick laced between my fingers, making a masterpiece of our love story. Of our conquered enemies and of our prayed future. Maybe it's impractical, to seek things of this magnitude, or to carry them out. But, if you know anything, I'll do just that. I've written it on so many pieces of paper that I'm not sure the world could hold another ounce. I love you, Basil.

[heirloomcolour]

[heirloomcolour]

[heirloomcolour]

[heirloomcolour]

Moscato

I get its appeal, but I really don’t prefer it. Usually. But you’ve softened my edges a bit, rounded me out slightly. And I got a little tipsy on a bubble rosé style moscato at dinner. I am missing you deeply today, you’re on night shifts at the hospital. I am lucky enough, though, that we’re sharing a car. And I get to pick you up from your shift tonight. I wonder how much more difficult it will be to miss you when I have a long term careeer position as well. Is the standard of true and undying love the curse of always missing you? I need a kiss, I need to clutch your perfect hand and stroll along a beachfront side street. I am so excited that you’re my star crossed lover that I get to venture through this life with. Cheers, baby. To more moscato 💕

[heirloomcolour]

Meringue

I didn’t know if I could conjur the courage to venture out on that cold February evening for a movie date. I didn’t know if I could vomit my entire day’s worth of nerves to self soothe before I embarked on my first journey to your sectional. I didn’t know if I could maintain my cool long enough to make you a dish of spiced shrimp scampi. I didn’t know how you would feel opposite me, wrapped in slick floral bedsheets.

But, I know now. I know how thankful I am that I was brave. How I forced myself to follow through, how I fought the urge at every corner to give up as I had in the past. To abandon my happiness and accept defeat even if I hadn’t yet tried.

I do now know the warm caress of your loving touch, I do know the majesty of blue hairs interwoven into my fabrics. I do know the strength of your hand as we walk down the square. I do know the gentle wick of your of your index fingers when fat tears roll down my cheeks. I do know your witty remarks and sweet affirmations. I do know that cherries and meringue taste best with chocolate, and all taste best when one is in love.

Happy Valentine’s Day, and almost anniversary. I would do it all over again, Basil. Every churning stomach, every shaky kiss, every trembling knee, every half- cocked smile. I love you times a million and another billion more, my love. You, you, you.