Dear beloved readers,
For the last one of the year, I approached a different road regarding my writing. Perhaps to keep things nice and fresh for the season of new beginnings or just because I needed to remind myself that I too can be a little unpredictable at times…So here is how my year went, and what I hope – or better yet, don’t hope for 2019.
It began with a hopeful feeling and a meaningful tattoo. A feeling and a promise that this one would be all about that. Gone were the lonely nights and now there was only space for the melodies I planned on singing and the lips I was certain I would kiss.
Soon there was work, so much work. The ten minutes break between each and every day were the times I had to inhale a quick cigarette and daydream with open eyes, since sleeping was out of stock and with no notice of coming back. There were lines said too fast, hair loss and terrible self-care, – The nights became terribly long and the days oh, so exhaustive. A friend that left and came back right away, a literature class that I perhaps, like everything in life, took too seriously, a terrible date that ended with Spiderman dying and also fabulous nights with my favorite company, when between colorful cocktails and spicy food we forgot for a second the promises we made for this one and we simply were.
Times were harder on different days. There were seconds that turned into hours and in one of those, I lost it. And like everything in life, I proved to handle this one like somebody that I thought I used to know, but who still lived deep inside me, would: With a ridiculous amount of cigarettes, gallons of coffee, perhaps too much eyeliner and a hair change. And so with pink locks decorating my hair and smoke dancing along my speech I realized once again that I, too, am not ready for most things in life.
There were the old-new loves, the forever paradoxal feeling that still haunts my days but only now, months later and after so many drunk confessions about said topic – to my bestest friends and strangers – I am learning how to deal. Or so I like to think so. A birthday that came with a very elaborated plan and ended with three girls and half a cake and probably the most amount of complicity I’ve ever experienced in my life, – With forks in hands and crumbs decorating the edge of our lips, we shared secrets and later, snoring, but I won’t get into that part.
Then, a drastic change. A new destiny, in an old home. Oh, how lonely that big city felt in between a delayed flight, a friendship with an old lady and so many desperate tears. It felt even worst when the next morning came and off I went, between numbered streets and avenues, that I was certain I knew by heart, but again, life proved me I am not as wise as I anticipate to be most of the time, – That old tale of the girl who thinks she can play with fire since she is immune to the burn. But perhaps my loud personality came in hand when lost and desperate, and always so chatty and eager that even with desperation to keep the tourist card hidden, my façade as a local didn’t last much more than three blocks. And there were the friends I haven’t seen in months and missed terribly, the glamour nights around the wild lights that I always heard about but was never allowed to go that further, the breakfasts at Tiffany’s, the overwhelming feeling that took over every living inch of my body as I, finally and maybe for the first time ever, was in the right track.
And then the old promise of that previous tattoo came in mind, and there were so many boys. Boys who took me out in the middle of the night and who kissed me deeply and maybe in a frown-upon way in front of the lights in the heart of Manhattan and made my head spin but my heart not even flinch. And then a hopeless feeling about being unlovable, a mini existential crisis over shallow boys that maybe kiss you very fiercely but, even if you didn’t even care all that much, you start to once you don’t get a callback. Luckily the ducks reminded me who I was and why I was, and suddenly I knew the true meaning of the tattoo, the city and the little four letters word that I was so desperate to have but clearly knew so little about. But then again, I mentioned boys, as in lots of them. So there was another love, that later proved to be a great friend – This one I created more memories with in one night than I have with half the people I know. We had chemistry in the talks but not so much in the kissing, and after a long list of 36 questions to see if we were meant to be or not, with the Empire State building peaking at us the whole time, giving me a stern look that said “You knew the answer before you even started the test!”, I understood why I loved people so much, and despite the lack of chemistry, I stayed the whole night living a little and doing things I’ve never thought I would. And what started as a very faithless encounter, ended with one of the best dates of my life.
And then, a tragic thing happened on 34th and 8th. Someone had the munchies and much to my disbelief, maybe the city never really sleeps but the good restaurants surely do. And between crossing the street and to have a decent meal and turning right back and tucking myself in earlier and just not having any food, if I knew what was waiting for me in that goddamn McDonald’s I would’ve slept with an empty stomach for the rest of my life. But unfortunately, Manhattan had a few more lessons to teach me other than how to use the subway and the word “perishable”. Actual magic happened in small frame of time, a hammered man with a enchanted deck of cards that wouldn’t, for the life of him, work in his favor. My adventurous little self – that’s what I call myself from that time – thought the whole thing to be rather amusing, and letting my bright eyes do their own thing, as I did trick the stranger into falling for the drunk magician and his lack of motor control. And then, then there were bad, awful really, European cigarettes and weird coincidences that made my whole body tingle, and eyes that reminded me of the cups of tea my grandma would hand me when I got either too sad or too anxious and curls so unruly that were one inch long but looked like would be 5 if only I pulled them gently. There were morning coffee dates and late cigarette breaks, and with a lot of other drunk people around us in multiple occasions, I found my self high on happiness, something I didn’t know to be quite possible. There was a very fancy Broadway show, with a tight red dress and absurd cleavage and a freaking tuxedo and proper shiny shoes, and emotions and two people trying their best not to fall in the bullshit that truly is a summer love. But it was all too intense, too fantastic, too surreal, and honestly perhaps as they say, too good to be true. With wedding talks and holding hands and expensive macaroons and so many maybes, –“Maybe someday this will be our home”, “Maybe someday we won’t have to say goodbye”, “Maybe someday we will too get a forever”, “Maybe it was Ray’s magic!”, “Maybe stop worrying about it and kiss me a little longer”, “Maybe the city did what it does best” “Maybe we don’t have to say goodbye, maybe we get to be in love forever”. And there it was, the thing I started the year wanting the most, longing more than my next breathe, even tattooing it permanently on my body. And it was right there, in my reach and just made for me, and I did the most selfless-selfish action in this world – I took it. I vowed a forever to someone who I could never have, but that after so many promises and maybes and what ifs and risky thoughts, there was no other option than to take it and grab it tightly, and you never really mean to let go.
There was goodbyes so hard to say and to kiss and so many tears in the cab ride, the airport, the airplane, in the air, when back on the ground, on the way back home, during coffee with my mother, when venting to my cat. At the time I thought the tears meant love and missing and the forever absent present of the one, but now I know it was just pure torture of a love that was mine but truly never were, of a commitment meant without certain, without meaning. But what can I say, I am thick sometimes ta everso, and then there were glances my best friend would give me and things so off character I would do and anxiety during long nights with no replies and more maybes and promises during FaceTime calls and texts, and fights, and apologies, and “I love you”s and soon but never now, and laters that were ages away, and “I am coming back home, to you” replied with “We have to break up. I am sorry”.
And gone were the colorful painted nails, the silly giggles and the happy melodies. There was pain, so much pain. Enough pain to make my 2014 self, who swore she wouldn’t be able to fathom another year, kill herself within the first hour of that stinging, excruciating pain. Lucky enough, people only seem to die of love in books and movies, so after crying all the tears I needed and smoking so many cigarettes my neighbor wrote me a complaint, I was brand new and as hopeless as they come. Perhaps the single most important lesson I had to learn, that as unfair as it can be, and trust me, it fucking is, there are things in life that truly are out of our reach. And with not another word of him, my life moved on without me having the chance to have a say in it.
And if during the pink haired days time seemed to slow down, now with a new plane ticked and really no plan I was certain that the Earth was flat and not moving at all. And then there was drinking, and crying, and being quiet, maybe even a little rude and harsh on people that didn’t deserve it. There were so many cold nights spent outside, holding my knees and puffing clouds of smoke, looking down on my phone desperate for something that I am still not sure what it was but that truly doesn’t matter since it never came.
And then more lights, and back in the city I was meant to call my home but which now I hated, because of everything that it held against me. And with teary eyes I couldn’t stand every single thing I once loved, and I was certain that New York was too part of my “we fall out of love for the same reasons we fell in to begin with” theory, and I was more heartbroken than before. But then friendly faces, movies in the middle of the day, buying lipstick, getting lost in Central Park, eating mini m&ms, more coffees in that special corner, laughing so hard with my mom, losing my breath running from the rain, singing so loud at a good concert, I knew I was mad at the love that got away, not at the place that brought it to me. I realized then and there that once you make memories with someone, they don’t go away that easily, a good example is how I never forgot how I cut my leg open by accident two streets ahead of my grandpa’s apartment, but it’s not because I have some painful memories in some specific locations that I ought to hold that against said place forever. Or, in my mom’s words: “Don’t let a shitty man get to ruin your first love and future home, ever”.
Then back to reality, there were group projects and essays and fights and dear lord so much stress. Nights spent up and terrible OCD and counting, rearranging, controlling and balancing. There was college punching me in the face, my love life running away from me and my friends stabbing me in the back, and if it wasn’t from my old childhood habits, also known as reading and watching and breathing Harry Potter, I wouldn’t have survived, and truth is, perhaps I only did so I could rant a few more times about how much I loathe the movie adaptation of Order of the Phoenix. But I made it, ended the semester with less hair, less friends and less will to live perhaps, but with my best friend by myself, a great party, good grades, an endless night with yet another boy – and even a note complementing my rather amazing skills. No more writers block and ocasional migraines. I got to take a turn in the unknown road and I loved every bit of it.
And then back to where I grew up. The place in which I still don’t feel as if I belong, nor I seem able to find or be myself, yet still the place in which I hopeful glance at him and hold my breathe and patiently wait for it, for something, for what I know I shall wait for until the very last second before the true final goodbye. And with a terrible Christmas and more lonely than maybe ever, again with the odd sleeping schedule, terrible insomnia, feeling the need to write things down, slightly depressed, itching for a cigarette and perhaps a little heartbroken, there’s less than a week left and all I know is that maybe, with the amount of melancholy I have in my veins I will end up writing yet another unpublished book. One can only hope, I guess.
But, while the inspiration for yet another story doesn’t kick in, I will leave you guys with this rather long recap of a very long year that will forever be known to me as the year I longed for love, found it, lost it and then found it again but not where I wanted it, but surely where I needed it the most. If 2018 taught me something was that somethings in life, this year included, sometimes won’t fall into a specific category. Not everything will be either good or bad, black or white, light or dark. There’s a shit ton of things that will be confusing and blur and complicated and oh, so gray. And we have to learn how to live with this thing that is but isn’t, you know? There’s this song in my favorite musical that pinpoints several ways you can measure a year. I could measure mine by cups of coffee, packs of cigarette and even needles and ink, but I am choosing to measure in the nothingness of several moments, in the gray areas that meant blank and bothered me so much that only now, as we are nearly done with it, I am able to realize how important they too, were. For the first time in my life I don’t have hopes and dreams about what is yet to come, I don’t have goals nor I will remain anxious for it, do the countdown, watch the ball go down, fireworks explode, not even long for a closing/beginning kiss. And you know what is funny? Perhaps for the first time ever, I am pretty sure I am gonna be fine. Maybe the key to life is not to long after all the special things a whole year can bring in between maybes and what ifs. Like everything, the future holds good things, bad things and a bunch of nothing that will probably bother me just as much as it did in the past, I am way to intense to understand that somedays won’t mean anything and that perhaps is my biggest flaw, but they too exist, and if 2018, the year that nearly lasted forever, taught me anything, was that they too are valid. And I guess that is what makes them at least a little bearable after all.
When next one comes, it will surely be a new year, I am not so sure what this means this time, but I am certain that if we, beloved readers, stick together for another one, and if we stay out of trouble, nothing truly bad can happen. So do me a favor and stay out of trouble, but if you don’t, oh for crying out loud, it’s the last week of the year, go right ahead, as long as you never forget to tell me all about it.
– Your Girl on the Go