i am crazy, but i am free.
End of the Week Thoughts:
$20 focaccia is…probably not worth it. I mean, buy it once. Just to see. But you don’t have to buy it regularly.
But you know what is worth it? Summers in Toronto. I forgot how much I love the towering trees and the lush gardens and the old Victorian homes and the side streets and the parks and the cotton candy skies.
I’m so happy my coffee lasts more than two seconds.
And I’m so happy I still carry Emily Mais dates where ever I go. $5 Happy Hour rosé, a new tattoo for an oldest love, spicy rigatoni, a long walk, and pre-cut watermelon for a midnight snack.
I don’t miss Rome. If I’m being completely honest. I still love it, I still love who it made it be, and who it made me become. I’m grateful for each and every high and low, but the longing for it…I’m not sure if I feel it anymore.
Hi everyone,
I just sighed. Lol. When I was living by the sea (wow, I love that sentence), a really good friend from Toronto came to stay with me for a few nights. And I guess when you stay with someone for a few days, you start to notice little things about them. And she pointed out that I sigh a lot.
“And Emily, you literally have nothing to sigh about.” We couldn’t stop laughing. Maybe it’s just a side effect of being dramatic. Who knows.
Um, last week I turned 31. Can you believe it? I hope everyone who reads this is like, “Wow Emily’s youthful and vibrant spirit, coupled with her face mask and hyralounic acid obsession makes her look 22.”
Right now, it’s 8:53 AM on Friday morning. I’m sitting on the edge of my bed, hair in a messy, sunshine and chlorine kissed bun. There’s a cold water bottle beside me and a *mug* of coffee. So Long, London is still on repeat. Still. After 3 weeks.
Do you guys want to know something? I thought I was going to put my newsletters on a summer hiatus. I was like - maybe I’ll just shelve it, maybe I’ll just live in the present, maybe I’ll stop looking for the story in Every Little Thing.
But then I realized - wait, these newsletters are so much more than just the stories. They’re an exploration of feelings. They’re journal entries. They’re…immortalized moments. A memory box. Fragments of gratitude. Pieces of hope, and pieces of my heart. So to put them on pause, would be doing a disservice to the way I have chosen to live my life.
The thing about love is this: the idea of losing feels evident in the beginning. The one who gets left first thinks they are the only person who’s ever felt this type of pain before.
But it’s as if an angel reached their hand out from the heavens and…really, they just set you free, first.
Ugh, Kacy’s Deeper Well just came on. It’s the the perfect “next” song as I watch the rain fall down on this concrete jungle.
I’m thinking about my final days in Rome. And do you remember where we left off? That fateful date with Hot F.
And did I ever tell you about how I thought I was being Little Miss Sneaky - going out with the Man at the Front’s best friend thinking that Hot F wasn’t going to say anything to the MATF?
Well, I was wrong. I was, in fact, very, very wrong.
A few days after our date, and two postponed flights later, I threw on my favourite cargo jeans and a white Brandy tank. The accessories are: our little Louis, and those classic white Zara sling backs.
Do I bring it up, or do I not bring it up? That is the question. I hop into a cab.
I wave to the MATF from across the street.
He looks confused. “Weren’t you supposed to leave yesterday?”
I nod. “I got sick a few days ago. And now I’m paranoid about flying while being congested.” I sigh, fold my arms across my chest, and take my usual position beside him.
“Ah. I’m sorry to hear that.” He passes me his vape (lol).
There’s an awkward silence. Until -
“I went out with Hot F.” I blurt out. And obviously I use his real name, and obviously, I can’t look at the MATF.
“Emily. He’s my best friend. Did you really think he wasn’t going to tell me?”
“Honestly. I’m just so used to being everyone’s secret, that I thought there was a 98.7% chance he wasn’t going to tell you.”
“He sent me a screenshot of when you messaged him. And asked me - “Oh. What do you think Emily wants?”
I bury my head in my hands. He starts to laugh.
“He knows about us too, you know.”
“Stop.”
“Emily. It’s not a big deal. Really. I don’t care, he doesn’t care. But. I do wish you had told me.”
“I know. I know, I know, I know.” I still haven’t lifted my head from my hands. “I was scared, to be honest.”
“To tell me?”
“Yes. Because you would get so mad and so heated over PN -”
“Emily. That was a different situation. I was worried about you. There was so much that you didn’t -”
“No, I know. Listen. I know.”
“I care about you. I wouldn’t have gotten mad or have gotten upset if I didn’t care.”
“I know.” I sigh. Again.
“So. Aren’t you going to tell me how it was?”
I smile. “It was great.”
Unfortunately. It was great.
“What did you guys do?”
As if he doesn’t already know.
“Went for drinks. Wrote. It’s rare to meet people who also write poetry. So I…I really appreciated it.”
“He said the same thing too, you know. He had a really good time with you.”
“Really?”
“Yes. And if you were staying longer, I would have told you to see him again.”
“Really?” I don’t tell him that I’ve kept one of his poems folded in the back of my phone case.
He starts laughing. “Yes, really. He’s my best friend. You’re my friend. You both had a good night. I’m happy. Can you stop acting so weird now?”
“Emily!” One of the hostesses walks out and gives me a hug. “I thought you had left already!”
I tell her how I was sick, so I kept postponing my flight.
She lights her cigarette and looks at me, with the slightest bit of sadness in her eyes. “I think you’re having a hard time leaving Rome.”
“She always does.”
“I mean, I don’t mind.” The hostess looks at him. “I think she’s my favourite customer.”
“Emily, you already know what my answer is going to be. I’m always going to tell you to go.”
“No I know. But my problem is this - I always feel like I’m being uprooted. Like I don’t have that one spot to always come back to. That one place to call home.”
“But don’t you think this could be why? So you can do more things like this. To go live in a different place for a few weeks. For a month. For two months. To experience something, and to write something new.”
I think back to so many conversations I’ve had at this bar. That always began with: “I’m having a hard time leaving.” It felt like there was something always holding me, always pulling me back. But then there was the universe. The universe, that, for some reason, never wanted permanency for me here.
“Don’t push through doors that aren’t open for you.” My Spiritual Friend says.
But maybe the permanency wasn’t supposed to be a tangible thing. It wasn’t supposed to be a long-term relationship. It wasn’t a job, it wasn’t a career. It wasn’t a long-term lease. It wasn’t something that was going to make me beholden to a place.
“Emily’s not just a customer to me. She’s a friend.” He tells the hostess.
But instead, that permanency was a feeling. Love. Unconditional love. Understanding. Acceptance.
People who understood, and people who accepted me, long before I did.
“Hey - you know what else I was thinking about?”
The martinis and the moon are making me sentimental.
“When I came here last year. And how I sat in that corner and how I told you that there was a publication that wouldn’t publish my piece because it was too emotional.”
Rome made me aware of something. Rome made me aware of the truth. The truth that lives inside me. And maybe that truth that is living inside all of us.
The truth that is dying to be set free.
“It was personal, and it was your experience. And we need that. The world needs that. It’s like when we hear the chorus of a song, or when we read something - and it’s that feeling of “Ah. Someone gets it. Someone gets us.” We’re all made up of experiences. And I know that the right people will always appreciate that, and the right people are always going to appreciate you. And you know what I have to say to the people who don’t?”
I start to laugh.
He holds up his middle finger.
“So. You keep doing what you’re doing, Emily.”
“I love you.” I tell him.
The Man At The Front looks taken aback. “You do?”
And I might use that phrase too casually. Too sparingly.
Too often, or not often enough.
But it’s the truth. I love him for seeing me. For understanding me. For allowing me, to be me.
“Yes. A lot.”
And with that, I give him one last hug. I feel his eyes on me as I run across the street with those Zara slingbacks to my cab. I pause before opening the car door and look at him. I look at the tower in the centre of the parking lot. I look at those two glass doors. And I look at that white brick wall.
“He throws these tantrums and fights because he wants you. He wants you and he can’t have you. And the more he sees it, the more mad he gets.”
The Man at the Front has just informed me that PN has been asking him, “Where’s that crazy girl?” In relation to me.
That crazy girl. That girl who is boundless. That girl who is free.
I give The Man At the Front one last wave. He smiles and gives me one last nod. As if he’s saying, “Go.”
And in the wise words of Lana Del Rey:
I was born to be the other woman.
Who belonged to no one, but who belonged to everyone.
More End of the Week Thoughts:
Sometimes, people have to set you free. And it’s not because they don’t like you, or that they don’t love you. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.
Everyone you meet teaches you something. But don’t forget, you teach them something, too.
Summers are beautiful. Even when it rains. Especially when it rains.
Not all endings are bad. And not all endings, are “endings”.
But. “Don’t push through doors that aren’t open for you.”
And my final, end of the week thoughts?
“I am fucking crazy. But I am free.”
your mind is so beautiful !!!!!!!
love as always