It's pretty wild to me, that I get to talk with my friend about books we both love (and know enough about them to have a conversation about multiple of them) while we walk home with coffee from our place where they know our names. We walk to a home that's a few blocks from my favorite park. A park that's covered in snow and trodden on in red and brown costumes by us humans and our dogs and a couple of squirrels. It's wild that for the past few nights a man who can't stop saying he loves me lays in my bed and wraps his arms around me to warm me up. And if I cry he'll kiss my eyelids and tell me to call him when I need him. A man whom a year ago I couldn't really look in the eyes. It's wild that we can have parties that fill rooms. People whom we all know and we all like and who genuinely like us back and have gotten dressed up and drunk to be with us.
I still have dreams every night which take on more of the form of nightmares. I wake up covered in a thin sheen of sweat, remembering the images my brain conjured of horrifying little demons chasing me around houses, trying their best to kill me while brick blocks are tied to my feet. I wake up thankful I woke up and that I didn't have to see those pictures on my eyelids any longer. I'm still crying thinking about going home. I'm still aiming to say what I really mean while accidentally lying through my teeth. I'm still apologizing for things I didn't do and charming my way out of things I did do. I'm still not really sure what I want and I'm still writing which is a miracle in itself.
I no longer wish I wasn't alive. I spend less time up thinking about how embarrassing I can be. I spend more time in bed. I drink the same amount of wine. I'm still a pretty good cook. I feel less and less like the butt of the joke. I feel more and more funny every day. I no longer include people who think cops deserve a place in society in my life. I only smoke cigarettes when I need to, not every day. I have hair that only goes a little past my ears and it's brown like my roots and not long and blonde and broken like it was in high school. I have people in different provinces and countries who call me on the phone sometimes to chat because we miss each other.
It's wild to me that my feet will know when to turn left and when to turn right in a city I had never stepped into before I was 17. In a city much bigger than the one I was afraid to go into every day. I have people that I met on dating apps that I try not to make eye contact with in bars. I have two cats that scratch me and wake me up and purr until I scratch them back. I have a lover with the softest little cheeks and the curliest black hair who watches communist videos when he is bored. I like tofu now. I feel a little grown and a little not yet done and it's wild to think all this stuff will just keep coming.
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