Things I wish I could Tell My 20 Year Old Self

You kill your sadness in many different ways.

You go through phases of depression, when all that makes you feel the blood rushing in your veins is alcohol,  nicotine, actual blood gushing through self-inflicted wounds, or heart aches you bring upon yourself. You do it all just to make sure you're still alive, still kicking, still THERE.

You ask for the little highs, you jump off cliffs, chase the rivers, ride the waves, stand on the ledge of ten-story buildings, just to feel your heart pumping in your chest. You shatter yourself again and again, for all the wrong reasons, just to see a sliver of light in the darkness that has engulfed your world.

It's been so long since there was color, you think; so long since you saw the blue sky instead of the gray clouds. It's been so long since you've felt anything but cold, and despair, and the raging need to just get on with your life.

You struggle, of course, we all do, you fight valiantly through the haze and the debilitating fog. You try to get through with all your strength, because it's what we do, love. It's how we're made. You get up in the morning and it's a constant battle against the odds and the voices in your empty head. You walk through valleys of sneers and catcalls, and judging eyes, all telling you "it's all in your head", "get over it already", "stop being so weak", "move on". You nod your head and try to not let it add to the weight you've already been carrying your whole life.

See, they don't know, they've never been here before. They still see the world in color, in a spectrum you've already forgotten, they don't get that you can't just "get over it already". It's not an airport stop-over, it's the plane itself. It's how it is, and how you feel, and that's completely fine. Your feelings are valid, and your brokenness is beautiful.

Take a day, a month, a year, a decade, struggle and fight through it all, just don't stop. Keep going, there's a tomorrow out there somewhere, where you'll be able to see things through rose-colored glasses, and not through the mist anymore. You'll be alright, love, you'll be grand, you'll be ALIVE. 

Rain Clouds

“I bet you’ve got a million stories in that brain of yours,” a deep voice says from beside me, its source looking out into the rain like I was.

It was one of those days where it rained waterfalls but somewhere in the distance you could see the sun stubbornly fighting its way free of the clouds. 

I stare blankly into the curtain of raindrops; the fourth floor’s glass windows giving me the complete view of the city rooftops, all up to the boulevard.

“They’re all sad, at the moment,” I answer, my voice low and measured, “But what does it matter?”I see him give a small smile from the corner of my eyes, he crosses his arms over the black long-sleeved shirt he has on; I fidget with the gray sleeves of my sweater, the sequined blue front of it catching the fluorescent lights. 

He looks at me now, and I wonder what he sees.Does he see the mane of unruly wavy hair that puffs up around my head like an insufferable halo of black, red and brown? Does he see the awkward young woman, the sweater she bought two years ago struggling to hug her shoulders? Does he know I bought the wrong size? Can he see that? Does he see the perfectly lined eyes and painted lips? Does he see the shell that I show the world; all perfect and unbroken in a sweater, skinny jeans and red sneakers? Or does he see more? God, I hope he doesn’t see any more.

“What’s your name?” he asks, and I can tell he’s fighting back a smile by the tone of his voice.

“Does it matter?” I ask back, I’m being bitchy today, and I wonder at myself. It’s not like he’s doing anything wrong, and what’s in a name, anyway? What’s in my name?

He shrugs, “It doesn’t, really,” then he raises a hand and runs it through unruly brown curls, making it even more of a mess, “but it’s better than ‘girl staring pensively out the window’.”

I have to smile at that. Pensively. Who says that? “I kind of like ‘girl staring pensively out the window’,” I tease, a small smile now forming on my lips, “it has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? It’s… unique.”

“I guess,” I still haven’t looked at him directly, I’m afraid he’ll see my eyes are blank and light-less, “so what’s your story, morning glory?”

“Oasis, 1995,” I answer, and this time I look at him, “Do I know you?” I try to place his features, and realize that I do. Same lean frame, same black top on black jeans with black sneakers combo, same dark brown dancing eyes, same smile, shorter haircut.

“I don’t know, do you?” he quirks a brow; same “I will answer your question with another question” attitude.

“Do you know me?” I ask, and I feel a little bit of life creep back into my veins. He must see it in my eyes, because his smile widens.

“I thought I did, once,” he stuffs his hands in his pockets, “I’m not sure now.”

I laugh, or at least I try to, it just comes out like a sad, sarcastic chuckle, “I thought I did, too.”

“Story?” he requests, his pretty head tilting to the side expectantly.

“I have none you’d be happy to hear,” I tell him as I turn back to the window, the sunshine’s gone now. I guess sometimes you just have to give in to the sadness.

He follows my line of sight, and sighs, “You know it’s not going to keep raining, right?”

“Is it?” I look at him, and his brows furrow in concern. I know he sees the blankness, the absolute void I have allowed myself to be thrown into.

“You used to know that,” he frowns.

“I thought I knew many things,” I shake my head, “Turns out half of them were lies and the others were make believe.”

“You don’t believe that,” he grins knowingly, “You want to, because it’s easier and it will hurt less, but you don’t believe that.”

I scoff, “You know me better than I know myself, then?”

“No, I just know you,” he shoves my shoulder lightly, “Come on, a story.”

“They’re all sad, at the moment, I told you,” I sighed in exasperation.

“So?” he insists, “At least you have a story.”

“There are no stories for you here,” I look at my shoes, ashamed. There are no stories for me here, either.

“Tell me your sad stories,” he says softly. I look up and see he has moved a few steps closer, “We’ll make them happy again.”

“We can’t,” I tell him, tears stinging my eyes, because he’s right. I don’t believe in the darkness and the void. It would have been so easy, to throw it all away, to succumb to it all. But I love too much, feel too much to be able to give up, and it’s the fighting against the sadness that hurts.

“You don’t believe that,” he whispers.He’s right again. So I look into his eyes and see the recognition there. I don’t know how he can tell that the light is seeping back into me amidst the cold weather, but he’s found me again.

“Fine,” I give in, allowing a small sincere smile, “Let’s get some coffee then.”

He laughs at his little victory and loops his arm in mine.

So I start with the stories, and bit by bit, the sunshine starts to filter through the clouds, and the dark winds start to die down… and I slowly stop existing and start living again.

Familiar Smiles

There's something about a smile, the way someone's eyes crinkle or completely get lost when they do so, the child like glee you see reflected in their eyes. There's something familiar about it, something homey, something warm. You realize you have seen that smile before. You have turned away from it and blushed already, once upon another time. You see the eyes, not quite the same, not even close, and yet when they crinkle and disappear behind the smile it brings forth memories of a familiar stranger you no longer speak to.
You can't help it.
You look away as soon as the smile begins, because you can tell when it starts: the eyes begin to sparkle with happy abandon, your heart quickens. You look away, stare at the ceiling, the wall, a piece of paper, anything, just not that face, not those eyes, not that smile, not now.
They don't look alike, at all, this new smile and the first one, the one that made you fall in love and broke your heart at the same time; and, yet, it's there. Uncanny similarities making you feel things you hadn't felt in years, the heart begins palpitating as if it already knows of the huge killer crash this will end in, but does it care? No. Because it's pumping again, isn't it? And a pirated love is better than nothing, right?
So what if they're barely a shadow of the one you fell in love with? So what if they aren't your usual type? So what if the standards have fallen so drastically it makes you want to weep on the bathroom floor at two in the morning with a half empty bottle of vodka or scotch in your hand? It's been a horrible year, and they'll do.
They'll do just fine, for the moment, the week, the month.
They smile again, and you tell yourself it's nothing, you try to convince yourself it's just the memories plaguing you. It's nothing, really. It's nothing at all.
Isn't it?

Hello, Again

I saw the horrible boy who made me laugh today. I was out on the town for business and had to walk a back road through the old churchyard to get myself a cab back to the office because the Park's streets were packed with festival goers. It had been a long day, and the afternoon was not even halfway done yet. I finally got a cab right before the road turned in to the church. As I was seating myself, I saw him walk out of the double doors and turn to the direction where I stood seconds ago. Five more seconds and he would have seen me. I was relieved, at first, like I had dodged a bullet. But a few seconds later, as he began shrinking away in the distance, a heaviness settled over me.

I had half a mind to ask the driver to stop, no, I changed my mind, I need to speak to him. In my head I had already ran to him, a big smile on my face, ready and willing to continue our camaraderie as if the past two years never happened, as if he never broke my heart. In my head, I had snuck up on him and looped my arm in his, only to laugh as he would panic and push me away. He always liked his personal space, and he was never one for random touches. Then he would laugh, too, and it would be like it was before, I would feel nineteen again, alive again. He would ask me how I was doing, and I would tell him of the hellish day I was having, and the problematic people I was dealing with. He would laugh at my troubles, like he always did, and then put an arm around my shoulders, comment on my height and tell me I could handle it in the most backhanded and cryptic way possible. I would have left my cares by the road as we walked down the path he was headed and talked about movies and existentialism, and the coming elections.

But I didn't tell the driver to stop. Why risk opening the floodgates of emotions that you so sturdily locked away years ago? I watched, still, as he disappeared when the cab turned the corner, and I remembered how he used to make me laugh at everything: my stress, my problems, the characters I so loved in the book I was reading, myself. I miss telling him my ideas and watching his eyes light up with a million stars because he was thinking the same thing, and our ideas would get crazier and funnier because our cuckoo minds would meet each other halfway.

He was the thunder to my lightning, and although he judged me, and he judged me heavily, he understood. He was a horrible, horrible boy, but he knew what to say to make me angry, to make me smile, to make me feel. I was grateful for that, and had I not handed my heart so carelessly to him without his knowledge, without his consent, we may still be friends now. Because what he told me when he broke my heart would not have hurt so much. He did not ask me to love him, he did not want me to, but we love who we love. I think that was my fault, I have a tendency to feel too deeply, to love too much.

But there he was and then, just like two years ago, he just wasn't there anymore. I miss him, very much, and that, I guess, is my fault, too.

Crisis

You tell yourself, "You don't understand," and then laugh because how's that possible? You're talking to yourself. How can you not understand?

But it's there, isn't it? The thought? The feeling? You like too easily, you care too much, feel too deeply, and YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND.

Then you draw it on your hand, on the back of your palm, you engrave it into your heart and carve it on your mind: I DON'T UNDERSTAND, I DON'T UNDERSTAND, over and over and over again until it consumes you; until it becomes you, until it IS you.

Engrave it so deep until it digs into every inch of your bones, on your tendons, your muscles, your arteries. Let it become your blood and let it run through you like acid until it melts away everything you once thought you knew about yourself; and all these unfamiliar songs that make you want to scrape your skin off with your own fingernails play on repeat in your mind and YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, YOU DON'T.

With every single drum beat, with every unknown baseline, you feel yourself peel away bit by bit, piece by piece, until all you can do is scrape yourself off the floor and drip yourself into a mask and perfectly pressed clothes. You brave the world because they won't understand, they won't, you don't.

You carry on day after day, year after year, and eons pass and still: you don't understand, you don't understand, over and over again.

You stop, try to rebuild, rename, recreate the shadow of yourself before you stopped comprehending your existence, but there's nothing left. It's just goop and bones tattooed with your mantra, and unfamiliar music blaring on broken speakers.

You turn to smoke, to burning liquids, to broken bottles and sharpened blades, empty vessels who offer hollowed out love. You build yourself up again and again, and... No, you don't understand.

My darling, they say, the answer is not in the powder you sniff into your system, it is not in the clear flames you pour down your throat, it is not in the nicotine you immerse yourself in, it's not in the blood you spill on your bathroom floor, it's not in that long-haired boy with the bright eyes and the promises that will shatter like thin ice. It's in you, under the acid and beyond the horrible music.

But... YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, you don't understand, you... you don't...

I don't understand.

The Horrible Boy Who Made Me Laugh

I fell in love once, just once, just the one time. At least it was as close to love as I thought I would ever get, I still think it is. You see, I fell in love with a boy who had a mind full of thunderstorms, hands like roses, and a silver tongue that stung.

He was not like the sunset, although his eyes did turn molten gold in early morning light. He wasn't an Adonis, and neither was he a Hercules. But his wit was as sharp as the arrows that flew from bows in the stories of myth, and his laugh felt like the rain on a day when the sun would shine so hot, the sidewalks seemed to melt. He was a horrible person, really. Spoiled and overly self-confident, he took his intelligence and used it as a weapon. He was underhanded and mean spirited, and made me feel like shit half the time.

But he made me laugh, and that was very important for me, at the time. All I wanted was someone who made me laugh. I felt horrible about myself already, anything he said, or did, did not hurt, at least not so much. He also read the same books I did, and as a teenage bookworm in an age where the boys thought reading was uncool and nerdy, he was a Godsend. He was opinionated, and unafraid to say what he thought, which, most of the time, was what I thought as well. He made me question things, he made me question everything, and he pushed me. Well, he pushed me away in the most hurtful way possible, but apart from that, he pushed me to do things I never would have. He challenged me, literally. When I'd tell him I wasn't sure of doing something he'd say "I'm doing it, so I guess if I get it I'm going to be better than you." He didn't get it, I did. Because he told me to.

He also intimidated me, and that is no mean feat, I may have hated myself, but I knew my views and my opinions and I knew how to voice them eloquently. I could intimidate the best of them, but him, I couldn't. He'd brush it off, and laugh in my face. It was refreshing. He had scathing retort after every scathing opinion, and he hurt my feelings at least three times every week, but he'd come up and wrap an arm around me when he knew he'd gone too far. He never said sorry, the unapologetic bastard. All he would do is sit next to me on the bench, and put an arm around my shoulders, or lean on me for a few minutes, transferring some of his warmth; and for some reason, I didn't need his apologies, I didn't want them. We'd sit there in silence, with him sometimes nudging my shoulder with his, or poking me in the ribs until I cracked a smile or pushed him away. He liked when I pushed, he'd laugh and then do it again until I started talking to him.

He read my poetry, and gave me constructive feedback, he drew at the back of my notebooks, and made me feel safe enough to say what I really felt, in the language that I could express myself best. He UNDERSTOOD. I could get lost in the stories he would spin, the way we talked about books and movies, and people we did not like. Every day would find me waiting for him because for once in my life, I valued someone else's opinion over my own. He slowly started to feel like home, like a white picket fence and a small two-bedroom house. I fell in love with him. I didn't realize it then, but I was.

Needless to say, he broke my heart and it felt like a punch to the gut. I was winded. But I didn't show it. I knew, you see, I knew. I was not his type. I was the furthest away from his type. But, God, do I miss the bastard. I don't hear his laugh anymore, we don't even talk. He's too far away for that, and I've pretty much severed that connection. What was the point of remaining friends if he still made me feel like shit at least three times a week, and he wasn't there to put his arm around me anymore?

I grew up, I guess. I love myself more now, and it's taken me 22 years to do that. I'll be damned if I let some boy bring me down again.

Orange Sunsets

I've always wanted a guy whose favorite color was orange. I think it's because I am so in love with the color purple (obviously), and sunsets. That doesn't make any sense, but let me explain. See, purple and orange only look good in sunsets, and sunsets are my favorite thing in the sky. Because I'm not just saying wispy, light purple and the peach tones of a sunrise; I am talking about the flash of bright, strong orange against the darkening purple sky as the day ends, the majesty of the sun's exit, how it is all bright and dark at the same time, it ushers in the night with such brilliance every day without fail.

Now to have the color orange as a favorite color isn't really a big deal, you know? I just think it would be a nice... well I just think it would be nice. It's one of those little things that don't really matter, but if it was there, it would make you a bit happier, you know? Anyway, so, yeah, the color orange, and sunsets.

I rather do like endings compared to beginnings. I mean, if you start something, it's so much work, you lay down the foundations, you build it up, revise, attach, create, add, continue slowly, oh so slowly, so that you don't mess up. It's the same with sunrises, don't you think? It's slow, and sweet, and light, then it builds up until it's high noon and the sun is blazing above and making you sweat and swear. But with endings, oh, the ENDINGS! Aren't they just marvelous? Every single thing you have done, you have worked for, culminating in a giant blast of color only to suddenly turn black. The drama, the theatricality, the beauty of it all! And you can choose! It's either bright oranges and dark purples, and Pomelo pinks with tinges of bright yellow, or dark blues with ribbons of yellows and oranges fading into the violet sky.

I like endings. I don't know what that says about me, I am pretty sure there's a psychological something or other about this, but I don't really care and I am not inclined to find out. I just like the color purple, and the way it blends so beautifully with the orange at the end of the day, that's all.

Every Speck of Gold

You know those people you meet so randomly, like after months and months of feeling gray and dull, there's suddenly this person who makes you feel alive; or at least the inklings of being alive are in your veins again. But you never noticed this person before. You've passed by this floor a hundred times, passed by that cubicle at least a dozen times more, and you never saw him/her, and all of a sudden, BAM! They're there, and it's different, somehow.

Anyway. So yeah, you've met them, right? An introduction here, a few smiles here and there. Then one day you see them, and your hands suddenly become sweaty, and you're really nervous for some reason. They say "hey," you smile back, maybe even wave, but you ask yourself after if maybe you should have SAID something, maybe you should have struck up a conversation. You dismiss the thought, remembering that, duh, why break the routine? It's not like you actually LIKE  this person, right? But, you see, as soon as you ask yourself that question, you already do.

Slowly, and unknowingly, you begin to anticipate meeting them in the corridors; you start to scan the room to see if they're there; and you start to notice your breaks seem to be in sync; and you start dressing up when you know both of you are going on duty. In short, you start putting in effort. Effort to be noticed, effort to be talked to, effort to be... more of a friend, I guess, it depends.

Then you decide, finally, to talk with them. Only, you don't talk, not... really. You pull up the work chat app, and start a conversation with them. You say hey first, of course, and then scramble for a response when they say hi back. Whatever, you just weren't ready. So you go on. This time it's outside work, you chat, you text, but you never see each other.

You find out they like horror movies, and creepy stories. They like The 1975, and RomComs, they want to travel the entire country, too. You find out they have siblings, and they'd rather stay in than go to the beach. They tell you about their plans, a bit of their dreams, and you realize you're falling in love with an idea of a person. But you're in too deep now, you can't pull yourself out.

By now you have already deduced you only have two options: run with it and hope you don't drown, or cut it out.

You choose the former. Because, hey, what have you to lose, right?

Wrong choice.

Because after months and months of feeling dead inside, you feel alive again, and that person starts to become your drug. You're dependent now, dependent on an idea. But then they don't know that. They don't know you've memorized every single speck of gold in their eyes to keep you warm at night, and you've replayed over and over every single conversation you've typed out. They don't know that the drunk texts weren't really drunk texts. They don't know they're the reason you're up at midnight just to wait for them to say Goodnight back. They don't know your heart will cave into itself when you learn from someone else that they're leaving.

But they'll never know, now, will they? Because how do you tell someone you've fallen in love with the idea of their brown eyes staring deeply into yours? How do you tell someone you've fallen in love with their sarcastic banter and perfect use of grammar and commas?

You don't. You just write it down, and write it down again. Then throw it away, burn it, bury it, hide it, whatever. Then the stories in your head, the ones you've kept because they made you laugh, made you smile, made you breathe, you put them under that rug that you love so much, along with every other story that keeps you fighting through life. You keep it there until it's covered by other stories, other golden flecks from brown eyes, other curls from other people's hair, other scars from different heartaches.

Then on rainy days, you sit by your window with a cup of tea or hot coffee, and you recall that one person who told you they hated travelling in the rain, and it will make you smile. Because their brown eyes are flashing in your mind again, and you recall every single conversation, and for a second, you feel alive again.

Sappy Stories I Can Only Tell Strangers

You know how there are stories you can tell your mother, and only your mother, but there are also stories you can only tell your closest friends, and then there are stories you tell no one about because... they're yours. But once in a while, there are stories you can only tell strangers, because, let's face it, there are times you just need to paint a picture of something beautiful to someone who has no idea who you are.

There are days when the stories you've told the people close to you no longer seem as colorful as you thought they would be. It's there, in the little movements: an eye roll with a knowing smile, the deep sigh as you begin your story, that thumbs-up sticker after you type the extremely long chat, the halfhearted "Okay, yeah," after you've told them a different story about the same person, and the agonizing feeling of being a broken record and an annoying friend.

So then these stories go away, or at least you make them go away, for a while. You brush them under a metaphorical rug and put a coffee table of practicality on top of that rug to better mask the bulge of stories hidden underneath. But like all things, the truth comes out, sort of.

Let's say you're on the train, the bus, the local public transport, whatever, or even sitting down alone at a restaurant or cafe at lunch break, and suddenly you see your "friend"from high school or college, maybe even elementary school, who knows, or maybe it's that one girl you kept smiling at in that old place you used to work at. The point is, they aren't your closest of friends, they aren't really friends enough to be called friends, but you know each other. You know each other well enough to tell half-truths and one-sided stories to each other. 

These are your familiar strangers, the ones who will ooh and aah at your stories, the ones you choose to tell, the ones you paint with such vibrant color. These are the people who will only take what you give them and ask no questions, they will not care enough to ask, nor will they care enough to remember. But will you care? Nope. Because all you really needed was SOMEONE, ANYONE, to talk to, to tell your hidden stories to. Someone you won't see everyday, someone who doesn't KNOW the entire story of your life, someone who will listen and laugh, and walk away after thinking of how adorable it all sounded but will forget it the next second.

I thank the Lord, or whatever being you believe in, for these familiar strangers, and maybe, you could be one of my familiar strangers, too.