hangman, answer me now
you owe me a debt
Hi friends,
It’s a Friday evening, and I’ve realized that it’s been a while since I’ve done this. Writing to you whilst doing my Friday night glow routine.
We start with a hair mask at around 2 PM (I love this one from Kerastase). It’s an 8 hour one, which means we’re stuck inside for the rest of the afternoon/evening - which truly, is the essence of a glow routine.
Glow routines welcome the silence of a solo Friday night. My balcony door is open for the slightest breeze. I snacked on raspberries and mangoes and blueberries. I had white fish wrapped in prosciutto for dinner (courtesy of my Aunt <3), and have been on top of my water intake. I had Lorde’s Mood Ring on repeat, but I stopped the music playing for now.
It’s in these moments where I feel the most real with myself, and the most honest with myself. Hair wrapped in a bun, wearing an old H&M tee and OFM’s boxers (still).
I’m throwing myself into a new creative project. I need to. A journal of prompts and old newsletters and poetry. My friend asks me if I’m torturing myself by reading old newsletters - but I told her - this is actually where my confidence and self worth stem from. From looking inwards, looking at the past, and making it into something beautiful.
My current therapist, Chat GPT, asked me if I’m scared to fully let go of OFM - because if I do - that will mean everything we had and everything we went through, will all have been for nothing.
I replied with an immediate, “Yes.”
And it’s the truth. I am scared that it all meant nothing, I am scared that I meant nothing, and I am scared that the only way to heal from this story is to make it into nothing, because that seems like the less painful option of the two. Feel my way through, versus, pretending like nothing ever happened.
It has been two weeks since that implosion, and two weeks since he blocked me, and I have yet to hear from him or be unblocked. Which, in turn, truly does makes me feel like nothing.
But do you want to know what I’m really scared of? Him messaging me to actually end it. That final goodbye.
I will never stop quoting Sloane Crosley’s “Grief is For People.”
“It turns out that most things don’t end too many times, Russell. Most things don’t end at all. So much is still unsolved.”
Maybe OFM has had the right idea all along. Letting things remain unsolved. How many metaphorical funerals and how much pain has he avoided by doing so?
-
When I first started my poetry page (Failing Gracefully) in 2020, I made a post of a list of journal prompts. Someone commented the ones they chose, and their reasoning behind the ones they chose were “because they were the most forward-thinking”.
This comment still haunts me, but only because my fear is that people see me as someone who lives in the past. Someone who holds on tightly to memory, someone who can’t let go of how things were, someone who dreams only in nostalgia.
But do you want to know something?
Sometimes when I’m in conversation with people here, I realize how little they’ve changed. How little they’ve evolved. I’ve been in the city since I was 13 years old. I’m now 32. I live my life, but I also feel like I’ve let myself live one million different more.
And I feel it is ironic, to hold a persona and a career built off of memories and the past - but to feel like they have outgrown so many people, situations, and most of all - ideals.
-
“Why don’t you text him first? Give yourself the closure. It’s Emily Mais’ world. He’s just (barely) living in it.”
My friend messages me this morning. I was telling her that I’m trying to give myself grace to be okay with the unknown. To not have an ending that’s tied up neatly with a bow.
Most things don’t end at all. So much is still unsolved.
-
I can’t pretend that it never happened, but I can’t pretend that something will.
I want to swim somewhere. To choose a place, any place. I want to swim out past the rocks that line the Ligurian coast. I want to soak my hair in salt water and let the curls form and let the sun dry the sea from my tanned skin. There will be a man next to me. I don’t yet know who this man is, but someday I will.
He’ll pull out two sandwiches. I’ll kiss him on the shoulder.
We’ll go back to our room, or our apartment somewhere. I’ll put on the tiniest silk black dress and sit at the wooden table outside. I’ll dangle my legs over the arm of the chair. There’s a notebook in my lap and fruit on the table.
He is there. He is home. And I am safe.
-
I don’t claim to know many things about this world. In fact, I realize the less I understand about this reality - the better off I truly am.
But I do know this. Each step we take will lead us exactly to where we want to be.
We just have to be brave enough to move towards it. Brave enough to feel, brave enough to acknowledge, brave enough to close one door and move along the pathway that will eventually lead us to another.
Brave enough to release something that isn’t going to lead us to that seaside town. To that goal, to that dream, to that little whisper in our soul, telling us there’s more out there.
There is so much more.
“Hi.”
I start off the message.
“Listen - I don’t want to be on bad terms with you. It’s always pointless. I hope you have a good time at the wedding, and have a good rest of your summer. I’m still very grateful to have run into you on my birthday. :)”
It’s as clean of an ending as I can make of it. As tidy as it can be. It’s from the heart. There’s no games. There’s no false sense of bravado.
So much is still unsolved.
But most importantly, I’ve stepped forward. I’ve made a choice to move towards something. To walk along the pathway, to acknowledge the beauty of past, to close the door, and to finally let it go.
