jonathan-boomer

[jonathan-boomer]

The multiverse, Terra Keck (because)

[jonathan-boomer]

I meant to ask yo how you were really feeling. I hope you know I wanted to.

But I think we both know the answer. I can see it on your face and I'm not sure I'm strong enough for the answer. And I know I'm not strong enough for the moment when it's my turn.

I'm not sure when the best time to ask these questions is, but I know it's not 5:30 in the afternoon when we're sitting in an almost forgotten Five Guys/

Still, you should know I want to ask, want to listen, want you to be heard. But we both know we're far from a place where those questions are only taken in passing. For now at least there is weight to them, heart in trying to understand.

There is no good time to ask, but I should've tried in that desolate Five Guys on that random Tuesday afternoon.

I hope you're doing ok, I know neither of us is. Regardless, I promise to ask next time I see you, whenever and wherever that is.

[jonathan-boomer]

Finding the family I want to share the future with.

I think a reasonable assessment of me would find that at best I am insecure, that I fear change, and more than anything else, fear being left behind. Oddly enough I think of being left behind rather than being abandoned. I think those are different because one implies some amount of contact remains, but that I can’t keep up, that rather than cutting ties we just drift further and further. 

This is - at least in part - because I have only ever managed to befriend people nearby, people who might have something in common with me but who is still distinct enough that the friendship is a choice we make each day. I worry that without some sort of strong force keeping us together, the weak one that we hold will fail and that will be the end. 

I wish I could know for sure what a strong friendship without that fear feels like, to feel so assured that nothing would be strong enough to break that bond and that we could weather distance and time without worry. I suppose I almost have that, but whether I will ever feel it is truly cemented is yet to be seen. Maybe the day will come when I will be proven paranoid, that a relationship I already have simply survives too many things for even me to worry the next morning will be the end. 

Without a natural extended family, I have, much as my parents did, had to make every effort to find my own. I hope that one day when - if - I have children, they will have aunts and uncles who care for them in the same way I have been cared for by my parents friends. Nothing matters more to me than the future, than making sure I want one, that it is safe and warm and worthwhile when I get there. 

I only hope I have chosen well.

[jonathan-boomer]

Find those small things from home, they will be mundane, they will be cheap. Take some with you when you leave, or learn how to make it, or find the one shop in your new life that sells it.

Home itself might not feel like much, but those odd little comforts mean the world.

Take it with you, share it with your new life, or enjoy it quietly in the dark moments when you miss what you left.

For me, it’s a local fizzy drink, cheap by the can but worth a fortune when I’m sick, tired, or lonely.

Find that thing, you’ll know what it is when you think of the things others haven’t heard of. Revel in it when times are good, and mourn with it in they aren’t.

You don’t have to love or miss home to love and miss these things. Be prepared.

[jonathan-boomer]

I'm so tired of fighting to be part of an existence that seems to be rejecting me at every fucking turn.

[jonathan-boomer]

I'm not sure how I feel about this one

The moment I saw you,

You reminded me of yellow

Warm

Confident

Hopeful

Our first kiss,

You tasted like red

Passionate

Sweet

Yet spicy

When you held me as I cried,

You smelt like blue

Calm

Fresh

Relaxing

You make me feel orange

Happy

Optimistic

Brave

I wish I could do the same for you

I want to be your yellow

Your red, your blue, your orange

I want you to see the whole spectrum when you look me in the eye

- jo

[jonathan-boomer]

You feel it, don't you

You feel it too, right? That distance growing again. That distance between you and the people you imagined a life with. Not in a romantic way, not in the usual sense at least, rather the strongest, oldest friendship.

But now you have that fear it's time to start again. That the oldest will never be as old as it could have been, will never celebrate certain anniversaries. That some jokes will be lost.

There's still time, dear friends, for us to fix this. I think so anyway. That we might revive this feeling, grow closer again, close that awful gap.

We can fix this, if only one of us could get over the fear. The fear of measuring that distance, of calling it out.

Maybe it's time.

Maybe I'll start counting my paces back to you.

[jonathan-boomer]

“Unfortunately the when if it was still a little ways down the road. But the where of it…”

V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

[jonathan-boomer]

Miller's Girl (2024)

[jonathan-boomer]

[jonathan-boomer]

Sylvia Plath, from The Collected Poems of Sylvia Plath; "Three Women,"

[jonathan-boomer]

“I am both worse and better than you thought.”

— Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals Of Sylvia Plath

[jonathan-boomer]

“I could not escape from you. My soul favors you endlessly.””

— Margaret Atwood

[jonathan-boomer]

Something in me wants more. I can't rest.

— Sylvia Plath, from “The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath.”

[jonathan-boomer]

Standing here cooking dinner, "why do you cut onions like that?" I'm asked most times someone else is in the room, the answer doesn't matter but it got me thinking.

"X taught me" is just such a wonderful sentence, I love hearing it. The idea that you could be doing something simple, mundane, everyday, but sharing that moment with the memory of the person who showed you how.

The reminder that the person you're talking to is a whole other being, with a life and memories outside your own. It's so special.

If there's someone you'd rather they didn't remember - aside from the cruel - why? An ex is the obvious one, but still, why? People have lived lives before you, it's a fact no matter who you meet. That someone met another person, lived lives together for a time, and gained nothing from it feels like more of an indictment than anything else.

Love that they have loved and lived before. Love them for it, then teach them more.

I learned the onion thing from my grandma, if you were still wondering.

[jonathan-boomer]

“Loving someone means taking the risk that they might f*ck up your nicely ordered little life.”

— Mark Haddon, A Spot of Bother

[jonathan-boomer]

Hell is waiting for things to get better.

I know things will get better, they have to, but the meantime is killing me. Waiting for my brain to feel differently, about itself, about my future, about everyone else. Waiting for the right moment for something I’ve wanted for so long. Waiting for anything to feel the way it should.

The idea that I can just go out and make these things happen should be abandoned immediately. These are not things for someone to track down, but to sit and wait for. They are processes, there are moments along the way where progress is made but this is the method, not the madness.

Rushing would, if anything, be unproductively dangerous. At best it would not work, at worst, I lose the thread and have to start again.

In the meantime we wait, we take notice of the progress because it is all we have, and we hope for those things sooner rather than later.

But waiting is hell.