09/03/2024
I am finding it increasingly difficult to not be incredibly earnest all the time. Different from being blunt, different from sharing honesty. I feel as if I no longer have a barrier to pretend a lot of things anymore.
More than anything, I want to share exactly what I am thinking and feeling and how it immediately plays into the grand scheme of things. I want to be understood wholly and completely in everything that I say. I have described this feeling before, and I understand that it is kind of impossible. But that doesn’t mean I don’t fight for impossible things. I am stubborn and impatient. Not quite a sore loser, but I have a tendency to try a little too hard to get my way. These qualities lead to a certain kind of perseverance that I personally find annoying at the worst of times, but has literally kept me alive at the best of times. Right now, this is making me unafraid to attempt whatever dumb art my heart desires, no matter what I think my various audiences will think. I am embarrassed, but at least I am making things I love. This blog is proof.
August passed swiftly, thank god (and semi-thanks to my list of tips), and I am left to start yet another transitional period in my life. This begins another era of always believing I am running out of time, something I am always very aware of, but have little to do about it. But sometimes there is something relieving in knowing that things come to stopping points so things can start back up again. I am back at school for the final year and I have started very strong and hopeful. Things for the future don’t feel “clear,” or calm, but there is a certain serenity that has washed over me about this being my last year in this routine. And it leaves me with this feeling that everything I am thinking is worth telling – not true! 90% of the time I am sure that all of my crazy thoughts and feelings have been felt by every single other person in their last year of college (and then that becomes very comforting, to know that I feel alone now, but there’s a history + a future behind these feelings).
And so this leads me to a lot of things, but especially the need to be brutally honest about how I feel about the people around me. I think it’s safe to say that, ranging from brief moments to months, I have fallen in love with every single person I have met. Do you find yourself doing this too? Sometimes it’s accidental, one time I watched someone tuck their hair behind their ears with both of their hands and I knew that I was hopelessly fucked for the next six months or so. Other times I am looking for it, listening to passionate instruction of a hobby, not really listening to the actual directions, just the tone of voice as they are explaining. I am trying desperately to just see a vague glimpse at their inner life, one that I understand I cannot enter. In terms of proximity (platonic, romantic, sexual, whatever), there is a threshold that crosses over into the Self, and that is what I cannot enter, only view. But I feel extremely grateful every time I get to view it. The fun part is that I have no idea when other people are getting a true view of my Self. I’m sure it happens frequently to the ones who know me best (because they are paying close careful attention, of course), and I’m sure those moments shift in definition frequently. I’ll see those moments in myself, too, and it just makes my love for other people bigger.
You understand my plight, though, right? Very earnestly spilling out a lot of words like this on paper is a lot, can you imagine articulating this, without fucking up, out loud? It’s jarring to hear that someone has fallen in love with you, if only briefly. And it’s almost never the right thing to say to someone you have only just met. But it’s true. I watched someone cut up an onion the other day. Someone waved at me from across the bar. Someone asked a clarifying question. Someone threw an egg. Someone giggled at a traffic cone. How do you not feel insane about these things? There has been a bit of an aesthetic shift online in recent years about “worship of the mundane,” particularly with oranges, but this doesn’t feel like that. Maybe because nothing feels mundane to me anymore. When you stop pretending you are on your own, alone in your room, it becomes shockingly easy to start realizing people are letting you in a little glimpse for a reason. And this goes back to this big looming thought: Time Is Running Out. Sometimes relationships with people feel like they are on a timer, for a number of reasons. With some, you can sense that was the last time you’ll ever see them, and other times (more often than not), exits are much more sudden and painful. And not even just death, but distance, time, effort, it can all feel like it’s on the clock. So why should I wait to say that, “Hey, I saw you spin a spoon so gracefully, it made me want to buy you one thousand spoons. As a friend, of course.”? Because, Jesus, that’s a lot.
I frequently say, “Can I say a lot of words at once?” because I need time and patience to be able to explain these things without feeling like I am confessing undying romantic love. Because that’s not what this is, it is literally just a bunch of words and sentiments at once, that I have to time perfectly in order for them to come across coherently. Being earnest in every fucking endeavour I endure is not easy, but it sure feels that way now. A lot of my barriers feel gone now (for better or worse), so I must preemptively apologize if you barely know me, and my words-all-at-once seemingly come out of nowhere. But I can’t apologize for being a little rushed away with intrigue. I assure you, I did in fact remember when you stumbled over your words while handing me a cup of plaster. And I watched you dance on your roof. And you fell asleep in my arms before the movie ended. And, and, and. I feel so overwhelmingly thankful that I get to watch those moments over and over in my head. And grateful that I feel like time is always running out, so I have an excuse to tell you.