allthatwehear

[allthatwehear]

The Blond Boy

Mom has been putting on this eight-hour loop of birds, mice, and squirrels from Youtube for our cat to watch. Last night, not knowing what to do in the silence, she gently put it on, (to which I later asked, "you don't like to talk about hard things, do you?"), and I watched the squirrels play in the snow while quiet tears fell down my face. I decided not to talk, because I almost didn't want to. I also wanted to be uplifted by the squirrels. But I didn't want to let myself not feel it, either. So I let the tears gently fall, occasionally being thought-interrupted by weird things ("you've met him, before, mom? Malcolm?") (I did say that before), with intrusive thoughts in my head. I'd wince here and there. Let the tears fall.

In the summer of 2021, I moved back to Seattle. I remember seeing some of my college friends, but it was awkwardly more of "goodbye's" because they were all moving, and scattering -- and I had just gotten there. It was very apparent that summer, maybe unbeknownst to me, that that chapter would be quickly ending -- and another one beginning, soon under its heels. A more "mature" one. I was refreshed, rejuvenated from too much time alone and at home with my mom in San Diego, and her husband, but I was very well, very grounded and very excited to start my new life as a young adult and college graduate. I was exceptionally brave. Did a lot of things/hung out with a lot of people I would never have in my old Christian years. It was the most growing and transformative of my life so far, that season. That summer, to start it all.

While those tears fell with my mom, and the squirrels, I did say to her: "we all still talk about that summer as if it were the 'summer to start it all'. It was all our favorites," meaning, George, Parlin, James, etc. We talk about it with an almost movie-glimmer in our eyes, a longing and melancholy and perhaps yearning. At least I do.

This pretty boy with shaggy blond hair and light blue eyes laid his head in my lap at a bench so-familiar to me now, at a bar that became our home, hangout, and beloved place. At Conor Byrne he took my hands and danced, led me over to his small crowd of his mom, sister, and brother-in-law, and even kissed me outside of it one night. That was our first kiss, in the summer. Outside of my red car, Stevie, I think he told me to "get out so you can give me a hug" and I did, and well. I think we both knew it was going to be something fantastic. The group continued to meet there, at that bar, our bond growing stronger, and they formed a dinky silly but ethereal and cosmically powerful (they were like the Grateful Dead, their energies...so hippie.. so otherwordly,) (but that was their friendship, more so than their music -- save their first song,) band. My boy played the saxophone. That's when I fell in love with saxophones.

He'd bike up all the way to my house after his work in Fremont to Magnolia, sweating and panting. He picked me up in my literal drive-thru for my cafe just down the block, us giggling and laughing and smiling and kissing, my co-worker looking out the window like we're crazy, and then with her strong "frown-lines", gray hair, said to me, "what was that all about?" when I came in. She continued to say how "that won't last" and basically be careful. To which I was like psh, yeah right. We backpacked and held each other's hands out of fright when we could've sworn we heard banshees in the night. Thinking back, I think he convinced me I was hearing things -- but later we told mommy that we swore those woods were haunted. We passed by all those hideous shops, I think those bringing tears to Malcom's eyes, and with tears in his eyes, his hand holding mine the entire time in the car-trek home out of the mountains, he looked at me and said, "I don't want to be away from you right now." And I was like, "what?" and he clarified, "when we get home, I want to stay with you" and I thought my heart melted. It all seemed so good. So glorious.

In the woods, middle of nowhere, Malcolm buys me a "Huff n Puff" tshirt I still own. It was the burger joint we ate savagely at and milkshakes and I told him about Maddie. He told me about his friends he was worried about. His heart seemed so deep.

What was within those clear blue eyes?

Despite it all, despite all the pain and the constant arguments, we still had moments of glory. We'd be fighting or just have a fight, and yet still go outside and make igloos in the unusual Seattle-snow with his/our friends. We'd go out to dinners with his family. Play boardgames with his mom at the table, have dinners. We'd meet up almost every day at his work, me bringing him tea after my cafe shifts, or take his dog Ruby on multiple walks. We always went on walks. A lot of the time I would cry in the parking lot of Discovery park at night, where we'd be arguing once again, me in his car. Sometimes it would turn into rapid breathing, and I thought I was having a panic attack.

His words, once so sweet and affirming, turned to the exact opposite and neglectful. Initially I raised a concern or an "ouch" and he was all arms to the rescue, apologizing and loving me deeply. Quickly though -- too quickly -- his behaviors started to change from that loving thing he gave me, and he told me I started to scare him with my piping's. He said the fact that I was getting angry at him (now) was what was, in turn, causing him to pull away. This made an awful lot of sense, and at the Discovery lighthouse I sat in the sun, not but one month (?) after dating him officially, writing of my own self-sabotaging behaviors and criticalness in past-relationships. This was true, of me. However. That is very quickly and easily a manipulation tactic ("you're causing me to pull away", when the very fact of the matter was -- it was Malcolm's sudden and frankly disorienting changes in behavior that warranted my like... "uh, what's going on..?" confusion and ability to speak up.) If I had to put it into words, I couldn't tell you.

It was like he sold me something that had an expiration date: this pleasant-Malcolm for X amount of time. Then, it ran out. Or like, I like to think of the Vampire Diaries -- how they describe the vampires' ability to "turn their emotions off and on like a light switch", and that was how drastic his change was. Like it was on, he was wooing me, I fell, hard, and then it was off... confusing. He started to get mad at my discomfort. He started, getting irritable, like he couldn't take it. Like, minor thing, at the backpacking trip, I earnestly wanted to camp at this site we had already looked at several miles up, and he got a little short with me/cross when I was like "oh no it's okay, we can stay anywhere" (because I'm a people pleaser, it's hard for me to get my honest feelings across without feeling like I'm stepping on somebody's toes,) but eventually fessed up, he didn't seem irritated by the fact I changed my mind, just that I seemed a little weirded out/unhappy when we camped at the place I didn't want, though I assured him it was okay, he walked in silence and his mood changed very intensely. Should've been a minor bump, but it made him very upset. My feelings were never okay -- they were always a problem. If they were negative. Expressing them certainly wasn't okay.

However, he masked this "need for emotions/feelings to be positive" by turning it into a mindset game. He was so magnanimous, charming, drawing-in, that whenever we got into a tut, he would usually talk about how "we just need to think about things differently (in this world)", "we need to be light, and happy" and it was very believable stuff. It was very sensical -- just draped in, perhaps, toxic positivity. I know now it was his escape from anything accountability. But he was essentially like a motivational speaker/leader -- his words were very convincing. So was his brain.

[allthatwehear]

it was like a miracle

yesterday it was all aches and pains. my fingers struggled to text the words, “can you order me some food, mom” “i’m craving fruit”. then when the time came, to creep down the stairs, grab the bags. i’m two staircases up in a three story home. i gripped the staircase handles, and brought all the groceries back up into my room (though some were frozen), and felt like I just climbed mount everest. the screen hurt my eyes. i went between watching Harry & Meghan, to my eyes were no longer opening. it was all, sleep, bleary-eyed open, chew on some popcorn, everything hurt. it was a deep, deep, physical pain.

that morning i had contemplated/wanted to go drive to a station just ten minutes down the road to say goodbye to my partner, as he left for idaho for a few days. we were going to miss each other for 10 days, with the holidays. we’d had a big fight, and regardless of what happened, i didn’t want it to end that way. at least one more grasp. i was very sick. he sort of, didn’t really know that. didn’t ask. two negative covid tests, but my mom and i agreed that wasn’t the case. i was all alone, felt like.. some sort of corpse thing. my partner upset with me, us mad at each other. all i wanted was his body next to mine. to fly my mom out, come blow up an air mattress and sleep on my floor while i slept. i just didn’t want to be alone. bouts of panic came over me, every time i turned, because i knew, “this doesnt feel right”, “this is wrong”. 

at night, a great sweat came over me. it was probably 2 in the morning or something, but i just noticed i was so wet. however.. when i moved, my body didn’t shiver, and quake, and feel like it was the illest thing in the world, inside. it was normal, and smooth. so i’d toss and turn, and not grimace in pain. the sweat was weird.. but i kind of welcomed it. is it a thing, to truly sweat out your toxins? it’s 8:30 in the morning, and i’m feeling like night and day. what the hell did i just experience? a freaking one-day bout of covid? I had said something, not so jokingly, to a groupchat my partner was also a part of, “does anyone want to quarantine together” “i’ve been crying so much i feel like i’m dying”. it was not a lie. not now, not now of all times. do not make me feel ill now. do not make me be alone, at this time.. with an illness, i did not know what to expect, i’ve never had it. my partner, riding hundreds of miles away, already a couple hours gone. i didn’t even get to say goodbye.

i don’t think i could have done it if i had been sick, and couldn’t make it to the safer haven, that is my mother’s arms, and the warm, balmy beach (for christmas). if i had to miss that. and by that, i mean break up. sometimes the universe knows.

this one-bout sickness, this praying for a miracle, reminds me of another time i felt i almost experienced death. i almost experienced a limit. and it was just as poignant as a warning sign as i think this was. 

being called a “baby” and a “tyrant” by my last-year’s ex partner (the love of my life,), i cried, went berserk in a parking lot, and starting racing to his work so i could give him a piece of my mind. he’d been tormenting me for so long. asking to sext when we’d been broken up, giving me hope that we would be back together - but when we were, he was manipulative, emotionally abusive, cold. he’d watch me cry with blank eyes. he kicked me out of his work. he wouldn’t speak to me, while i would be sobbing on the phone.

love is not pain.

i got in a car accident. i hurtled down the road, tears down my eyes. i passed someone very violently in a middle lane, got in front of them. managed to make that safely - but. then i was speeding, thought the black car in front of me would surely go through the yellow (well, wanted them to), and bam. I slammed them so hard, probably going 45 miles or so. all because of this person.

the night before, i am sobbing in my car as my current partner wouldn’t let me come up to talk, to see him, to even say goodbye. i said, this is silly, we are on the phone, why can’t we be in person? he tells me you had your chance, you just dropped me off, why didn’t you talk to me then? the confusing thing is he’s always wrong, you see. but to him, he is not. he tells me things like - why didn’t you talk to me when you had the chance, when the reality was he walked away from me. he got up and left me. why do you have to control everything? why do i have to come home when you want me to? well, because you said 6. and you berated me that it wouldn’t be later than that.. yet it was. so i am not allowed to be mad? oh no, never. i am constantly punished. and blamed for things that aren’t my fault.

the reality of this situation is narcissism. my therapist says, you met an older one, who was more sly. his abuse was discrete, it came on quietly, and it was not as noticeable (M). however, C, C is a young narcissist. so you are seeing - tantrums, storming out, blaming you, gaslighting you, much more obviously. 

i am with her because i am trying to figure out how to not stay in these situations. suppose the first one really got me ready for the second.

the difficult part is that they do, entirely, 100%, believe themselves. C believes wholeheartedly that I am being controlling (or that is just the argument he is using), to cover up for the fact that he is doing wrong by not respecting me, and I am right in that he is choosing other things (drinking, etc) over me. hold a mirror up to them and they see, blameless. one of the stupidest things with narcissists is, entirely, “if you wanted to, you would”. yet somehow they find a myriad of ways to describe out of that. “No if you wanted to be with me, you would have come out with my friends,” “I was literally sick.” 

it is exhausting. as a child, i must have felt unheard. needs unmet, the stereotypical for targets of these emotionally abusive types. i can’t remember a time in my little archives of when i was a literal crying toddler, and a parent was telling me to stop. but boy, was that a situation here. what human being, what partner who says they love you, could let you stand, or crumple, or be crumpled, on the floor, and not feel empathy? and not touch? and not lean down? is that truly somebody that you love? 

I saw on a TikTok..

“this is what I learned: if hurting me, does not hurt you, you don’t love me, you’re using me.”

this may as well be the anthem for narcissists. 

what do they want - a cozy bed? a distraction? love and affection, someone adoring them? what happens when the sheet comes off, and the blinders are gone.. and I start arguing, I start putting up a fight? they don’t like you anymore. this is called the end of the idealization stage - where when they are first dating you, it is scary. they truly are some of the most wonderful people you have ever been with, and they, (believe it or not) truly believe, too, that you’re one of the most wonderful people. they might think you’re the one right alongside you. but they can’t keep up the kindness forever. it comes down.. at some point. what’s horrifying is sometimes some of them are so good, it can not come down for years. trust the true face, when you see it. 

C was quick. one insanely, ridiculous, heartbreaking joke, playing on the fact that i had lost dozens of photos on my phone (my stupid iphone just literally up and died one day,) and he was there with me while i held back tears in the apple store, cried in his arms outside (at this time, i was purposefully gathering photos/videos of people i loved that were moving away from my community in washington. so, that meant something). made a joke of it. “can someone take a picture?” at our friend yasmeine’s going-away party. C says, “don’t ask sarah because she lost all of hers”. i repeated this back, when i was telling my bestfriend susy, about this soft, sweet, wonderful boy i’d started seeing. she obviously knew because we were in europe together, and she saw me texting a person a bunch. i sat down with her, getting a croissant. i said, everything is great.. but.. there was this one thing. and before i know it, i am actually (in my feelings), explaining the joke. how much it haunted me. how much it made me want to run away. how “M” it was. she didn’t give me any consoling, either. susy seemed very disturbed, herself. she seemed to like C quite a bit, but i could tell, i think that mostly swayed her opinion completely. 

events only got worse, and worse. C could hold his own only for a little while. there was a time something sort of inappropriate  

[allthatwehear]

I’m ready to tell you what happened, mom

The river trip was the first time I have not talked to Malcolm for weeks, and like a drug, it’s hard not to relapse. From when we broke up in January, save maybe one day, maybe two, we have talked every single day. Until the river. Until he let me go. Until he stopped answering my messages, and with every single day, though I thought it would kill me - to just, never hear from him again - I realized.. with every one day more that passed not hearing from him, to another, to another... I was still, alive. I was still, okay. 

The truth, is that I have not been telling you the full truth, for months. Maybe you have suspected it, maybe you’ve wondered why it’s been so hard for me to move on, because it wasn’t - because he has still been in my life, almost as gruesomely, maybe more, as when we were dating - because this time, in being at arm’s length from him, I got all the mean, but none of the nice (the “nice” being, at least cuddles, physical attention, etc.). No, I have been “emotionally” dating Malcolm, since day one. We have not let each other go. And this is what I mean when I told you today, me at the store, that I am so, so proud of myself. So, so proud of myself.

I’ve always wanted to talk to you about this, so I might start at the beginning. Before moving back to Seattle, when I looked at you, terrified in the kitchen, a deep part of my soul knew... I was going to try to go back to him. And I was terrified of that: I was terrified, of myself, because I knew... the closure, how he broke up with me, I wasn’t okay with. I wasn’t, “ready”, and I felt fairly confident, if I just went back to Seattle, we could probably pick up again, at least for a little while. And jesus mary joseph, was I wrong - at least, in that what I got wasn’t a “relationship” again, it was just... being used... and crying... and feeling like, I couldn’t go on... and my heart breaking, when there was someone else, and my heart breaking, when he would refuse to tell me there was someone else, and so.. so much more. 

I moved with Conrad back to Seattle. My mindset was, secretly, “if I just get into this nice new house, if I just have a more stable living situation than what I did before - that was the root of all our problems, Malcolm and I could be together again”. And so I waited. Malcolm sent me some texts while I was journeying back to Seattle, even while I was with Conrad. We would say things like, “I know that this is difficult, but I still have a lot of love for you”, to talking about our day to day activities, to in-depth discussions, as usual. We were friends. He wasn’t letting me go. We stayed attached. I moved back to Seattle. The first time I saw him, after moving back, my protective mama bear heart was still fighting - I was mad, mad at Parlin and George for how they still saw him, etc. But as I got invited into the band, and became the cuttlefish puppet, I softened, and wanted to be a part. I remember texting Malcolm before the very first Goatclub show before seeing him since we broke up, “is it okay if I’m in the show with you?” and him saying, “yes”. We still talked.

That night, at the show, first time seeing him since I moved, he was touched by seeing me. He seemed like he missed me a lot. I talked to his family a lot that night, about his sister’s wedding, that I was dreaming to go to (you remember that. I cried in California because I missed it). Later that night, the whole band went back to Malcolm’s to have an after party, and I calmly and humbly made my goodbyes and scooted away. Malcolm thought it was nice that I didn’t try to shove to come. We talked late into that night on text. He said I danced wonderfully, thank you for being there. Then we ventured into hook-up territory... maybe I should come over, etc... thank god, he said no, changed his mind late into the night. We’ve never had sex again. And if I could have it that way, mom. I would beg for the sex, and not for the emotional shit he put me through. I swear to god, I would’ve rather it be physical, than how he toyed/kept me along emotionally for this time. 

[allthatwehear]

Someone hold my hand, because what I experienced was abuse

Certainly a catching title. My eyes are stinging a little as I read this; evidently, they are already puffy from crying for a near part of half the day, all from the same cause. You will read about in a minute.

I’m hearing my beautiful friend Sabrina’s voice in my head, as I’m swinging my steering wheel slightly to the right, typing “Someone hold my hand, because what I experienced was abuse”, the title, with my other hand into my Notes app, hearing her say - “it’s not a matter of if, it’s when”, when I told her one day I wanted to write about this. I stopped by 7-11, got some wine, because if I am going to write about this, I need to sloooooow down.

Alright, so get this. I would be confused as to why I have decided to write all this, now. Let me tell you why: because I have still been seeing this person. We have been having (now) multi-weekly “book” meetings (we do talk about books - I’m serious. It’s cute. We sit in a park, it’s cold. We sit close, we literally read chapters, discuss them). We’ve been taking walks, to discuss such books. I’ve been seeing him now more than a lot of my friends - now more than ever since we broke up, in January. We text every day. Usually it’s fighting - some word he said caught my throat, and I can’t seem to stuff it down - usually it’s really fun. We’re talking about the world, we’re talking about another way out of here (me, wanting to get out of this society). But we have talked every day (maybe, skipped like, one, or two) since we have broken up - so.... it doesn’t really feel like a break up.

The other day, at the park, right before I flew to San Diego for my birthday, he held my leg in the car (cause it got cold outside). A few times we dabbled with being together. 

I go to all his shows. His bands’. 

I am stating all this, prior to talking about how abusive he was, because I need it to be clear that it is not easy to detract oneself, EVEN from someone who hurt you. I so much as planned a birthday camping trip - secret from our other mutual friends - with JUST him and his bestfriend - so really, really, trust me. I was entangled. It was like living with two fucking different brains. One knew the truth; one remembered the cruelty, one was crying all day, one lost sleep (even after break up - yes, even still!), one thought the only way to escape was to move away (miles apart, San Diego). One was smart. The other... oh, the other. See, I was the perfect cocktail. Two siblings dead. Absolutely wrecked; maybe, a year and a half out, before I met him (of losing my most recent and oldest sibling, Jay, to brain cancer). I had barely been in love before. I was making my way back to Seattle, after having a sabbatical of sorts post-graduating. I had no purpose; was not pursuing my bachelor study anymore, didn’t know what friendships still resided where post-college, couldn’t move back to Colorado, etc. 

I was very vulnerable. But most importantly: I have been through a lot of trauma; and being with him, the scary ups and downs, the unpredictability (in his moods, too, were like my dad), none of the settled-ness - this is familiar. This is all too familiar. And I was so desperate to find love; I was so, absolutely naive in the beginning’s of his kindness, that I fell so fast, and so hard. 

I remember telling my mom, just one month into the relationship with him - that I “was so scared, I think I should jump ship - something feels wrong”. And that day, we came to the conclusion that our lives have been very heavy. Very very heavy. So when something so beautiful came.. it made sense that my instinct was, “no, it’s too perfect” - everything sweet, usually turned out sour in the end. I get burned, on many occasions. So when it felt so good.. it was foreign.

Are you following me? So when it felt so bad.. it was comfortable.

I couldn’t detract myself from him, because I have an unbelievable high-tolerance for pain. I could argue until I was horse; this is probably why he couldn’t last as long as me. Oftentimes - until our eventual relationship’s demise - he had to opt out of fights. I could keep going. I could keep going, though I was buckled over on the side, clutching my stomach, opening his car door so I could breathe fresh air because a panic attack started going on - and then do it all over again.

This is not healthy. It is not right. But so is a partner who watched you go through that pain, and didn’t do a thing about it. 

I met him in probably one of the most romantic ways. We were at this pub in a bar-ridden, slightly homey, old-town sub-part of Seattle, Ballard. There was a group there, all brought together by a human I know (love you KJ), who essentially met through connections of connections (they met her at a party, invited her, he met him at his work, invited him, and so forth) - who started doing music together, at the open-mic. They were strangers; we all were. Who met at the same time, surrounding the same love for - community, as COVID was still a thing, but people were going out, and music, arts, the likes. At first, in meeting these people, I met someone who I admired for probably a couple years via IG, and my eyes were set firmly on him. I didn’t even notice this other guy - blond, tall. The first day he came into the pub, his ankle (knee?) was bleeding from a fall on his bike. So he biked? That’s attractive. Anywho - he was shaggy-bearded, also not particularly my type. 

What struck me most was his pursue-al, and his seeming kindness and down-to-earth-ness. We became friends, as the group of us went week to week to Sunday open-mics, and we laughed as a group of the particularly music ones got on stage and read poetry, made the audience laugh, but were really a hit - a band in-the-making. This would later become their group, Goat Club band. All born in that bar. 

I left to gather my things in San Diego, determined to move back to Seattle - especially now that I felt I had found a “group” I had fit into - and my big, easy-loving, easy-grabbing heart, was so ecstatically excited. I like new things, I like new people. A big awful oops, because it can mean I’m a bird attracted to shiny objects - my biggest and most painful lesson/regret, was in being so stupid to neglect the people who were behind me always, foundations, and be so into these new folk. 

It was wonderful, for a time. While I was away gathering my things, I worried that that same group of friends wouldn’t be interested in me once I got back (that I was missing important ‘quality time’ and hangouts,) but he kept me very informed, and very compan-ied. He texted me every day. It was spams; all the time. I often laughed because the way he texted was like someone on cocaine - a million message a minute, but like, insanely deep thoughts, too. It was so fun, having someone to talk to. He read all my posts, too. Once we exchanged instagrams, that was one of the first things he did. And he was flooding me with questions about my family, about my losses - the deaths of my siblings; what was my thought process now? Some very, in-the-moment cringe inquiries that treaded on unstable ground (for me) about not being sure if my perspective on life was exactly good, if I was letting their deaths interfere (probably not the words.. but something like that) with my own life, etc. Those bothered me a bit, and I remember thinking, what a stuck up, totally unknowing perspective. It was all absolute ignorance - this guy had never experienced a suicide at 17, a cancer death at 22, a divorce at 14 (?), weed and alcohol addiction (dad), estrangement, etc. And you’re right Sarah, he didn’t. And perhaps that should have been your first warning. You two were far too unlike - his life is very shrouded, if I may say - in cushions and wealth. I have a few who will agree with me on this.  

I’m not saying that pursuing someone so heavily or being so interested in them - all of the things/motions he was giving out were a bad thing. It was wonderful. I did feel so thought of, I did feel so interested in. What the problem was was when these things were fleeting; when they stopped, close to when you become a couple. When there aren’t anymore questions, like there were before - and in fact, there become more offenses. And the questions become all about his family, his life.. and soon, I am left wondering where the curious person went - who especially, appeared to have such interest in me. 

We were goopy. So in love. I remember once, when he drove me to work early in the morning at the coffee shop, he pulled off to the side (just in front of the drive-thru), and hugged and made me laughed, we laughed, and kissed and acted like we had just gotten engaged or something - like there was such great news; and it was, we had met and we obviously were happy. I walked in, and my coworker said, “what the heck was that all about”. 

He showed up to my house almost every day after work; bike helmet on, ready for a sweaty hug. Gosh, even now I find myself writing the sweet things about him - it’s all my brain wants to remember. You don’t want to think that someone who was so kind, could possibly become so destructive, monstrous and unrecognizable. You don’t, because it’s something you basically cannot comprehend. Two brain thing again - there is the part that saw, fell in the love with, the beautiful. The other.. *must* put TOGETHER the cold, emotionally abusive, and neglectful truth... “When people show you who you are, believe them the first time” (Maya Angelou). Well perhaps I was believing the beauty, the cuteness, the initial interest and pursuit - but I had my rose colored glasses on for when it was going south, of course.

I cannot for the life of me hardly remember the small, subtle attacks leading up to the bigger ones.. the pivotal ones are just to engrained in my mind. But I know some of the feelings were - I felt like I was constantly trying to explain my hurt feelings, but was met with “you’re just not interpreting it correctly”, “you’re hurt because you’re assuming that’s how I meant it”, and more. Usually it was always my fault if I was hurt - because I had taken his words and made a new meaning with it. A couple times, no a lot, he is extremely avid on me (or his partners, lol) listening to some relationship talk guy blah blah blah talk about (specifically, he always liked to bring up this part,) about how people go around hurting themselves because they’re construing their own meanings about things, instead of being more inquisitive, like an investigator, and asking “is this what you meant by that?” Now, I think that’s nice and all. And believe me, as soon as I saw the love-of-my-life liked this type of communication, I activated it - but the problem in my deeply loving, always-trying-to-validate, psychology-counselor heart was.. well.. even if he hadn’t meant harm, what happens when it still hurt you? And this is not what he could succumb to. He wouldn’t have it; a part of me believes that is because he is so self-conscious, about anyone making some sort of negative claim on him (”you’re bad”), he will try to shut it out any way he can - so that he cannot himself be bad - to, himself. It’s weird, I know. But I think that’s what it is. Anyway. 

[allthatwehear]

i started dreaming of a family, a beautiful family

i started dreaming of a family, a beautiful family

i started seeing him, my love, in my dreams. i would see him when i would stop to think of who i wanted in my life. he would come to me.

and tonight, in a few songs, in an album name, i saw her, i saw her.

i saw her, persephone. my daughter.

i see him, with shaggy dark hair, a smile that kills the world. i saw her, too, once, incredibly small, coddled in his arms. 

“vito’s ordination song” - sufjan stevens

we will wear crowns at our wedding. we will have bare feet. there will be beautiful crowns in our hair. it will be outside. the sun will be shining. there will be hills/mountains surrounding us. the air will be still, you will hear us talk, and pronounce our love together. my aunt will say a prayer for us. 

[allthatwehear]

my life got flipped turned upside down

i don’t have a lot of words for things right now. i just found out yesterday, in total blissful ignorance, that my long-ish term boyfriend (of five months now) may be moving to a farm in spokane in the spring. while we were eating dumplings with too much soy sauce at the table, he asked me, “when is your birthday?”, and I said, “april”, and then, “I guess you’ll be at the farm by then”, he said “yeah, probably march”. i haven’t been speaking to most of the friends i wanted to, or was even when i was in california, and now i’m a great distance closer to them. i don’t really want to put the effort into salvaging nor recreating the old friendships that blossomed over the summer - not now that it is all about “goat club this”, “goat club that” -- really the only quality time we get with those old people is when we are at their shows, and doesn’t something just sound a little glorifying about that? we’re there to watch them, are they gods to us now? are we peasants to them now. i didn’t like my current friend kj blurting out, once I told the news of malcolm’s farm, “oh my god i want to live on the farm! maybe just for a few months”, and me, i’m like, i was just talking about how shocking this was for me to hear and my opinion on people being more respectfully and considerately up-front about their grand “i’m going to do this” endeavors before getting into a relationship, XYZ. KJ just looked at me and told me that she doesn’t usually get into relationships with the idea that it’s going to be forever, that just those temporary times together are worth the temporary-ness, and i just felt kind of offended, kind of like i was being told my feelings are strange or maybe stupid or wrong, or that maybe i should feel a different way.

i’ve been getting that a lot lately, like my feelings are weird or wrong (or just being compared to, like “well I usually such and such....”, when it opposes my feelings,) and i’ve been wondering a bit if i’m just a target to be messed with, or that people more often say harsher things to, or don’t consider as much, because it seems to happen a shit-ton. maybe they think i won’t do anything about it because i’m so on the outside, nice. 

i don’t know what the fuck i’m doing with my life. and i am not sure if i am confident about the people who are in it, either. and yet, moving back to california with mom and daniel, away from my young-folk, sounds terrible. it is not to that level where i feel i want to open that door again. it does feel in the need of a more drastic change, however. and i can’t be everybody’s caretaker. i’m not going to take care of kj’s feelings all the time, and i’m proud of myself for instantly putting boundaries up with kaley, too. i can’t 

[allthatwehear]

moanings for the past, for what once was. 

groanings for the tender-girl who was easy to smile, easy to laugh. who drank in life like it was the H2O her body screamed for when dehydrated. 

yet each phase felt like an entirely new lifetime ago - and i can’t keep up. who is who? who is she now? what was she, then? and can i ever go back to her?

[allthatwehear]

New York

-CITY PASS: $132 access to 7 different NY locations: https://www.citypass.com/new-york?mv_source=empire&campaign=citypassdetails *Note: Must complete Travel Health form before entry to all places. https://forms.ny.gov/s3/Welcome-to-New-York-State-Traveler-Health-Form

-Columbia, Lincoln Center, Julliard, 

-Metro-card, 30-day $127 

-Sunset park/morning yoga

-CENTRAL PARK

-Research “Restart Stages” for Lincoln Center

-Brooklyn Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge Park

-Brooklyn Musem, $16 per admission

-brooklyn art library

[allthatwehear]

futile wishes.

 i think of you all, from time to time. i long for the glory days so bad sometimes that i make myself depressed about my beautiful present. because i realized, how beautiful those past days were. i think about you from time to time, and i wonder how you are all faring. i wonder what you each think about each other, if you feel as close as you always were, or if life circumstances and natural drifters have created an unspoken wedge between you. and i wonder who is still close, and catches up like no time, no significant things have happened. i think about you and the way you made me laugh and feel crazy and adventurous like no other; how you fed this part of me that had never been fed by friends/someone before, and i got hooked on the adrenaline like a fucking drug. (cocoon: marty o’reilley & the old soul orchestra). i wish the ways you made me feel like it was okay to be a little young, be a little reckless, because i felt like that truly a better, simpler, much more joyful way to live and i just love that about you guys, i just love that. your ease, your looseness, your carefree, carpe diem, live for the moment. it’s been years now since our best times together, years even still -- that i am such a remarkably different person than the person you affectionately adopted into your clan, yet i think of you with such undying fondness and love -- and -- yearning? yearning.. yearning.. for history, to repeat itself.. for you, to come back to me, into my arms.. to say, you are sorry we ever separated, we ever let go.. and could we put this in the past.. just for now..? so that we may resume, and not waste any more of our precious time on this earth, exploration - but to a newer, higher degree as we are older and becoming such unique, gorgeous beings, let’s live it with each other, our learnings? my heart song will always be the same, i don’t think it will ever change. i will love and miss you for the rest of my life, whether it will you will be morphed into “i miss the idea of you” or i will actually miss you -- either form, still slightly resembles -- you. i will not deny there are still times that i will do something that i so desperately wish that i could share with you. either you are all with me in the action, or i am so excited to boast it to prompt a future plan to do it again, this time altogether. i miss loving you, too. i like to have things to love; and of course, it never hurts to be loved in return. i still cry over you. i still ache when i look into the eyes of a common-friend, and simply yearn you were with me to hangout with him (so i’m not alone in all the energy absorption -- whew, that is hard.) i imagine the next time we will see each other actually a lot. will it be in graduation cap and gowns, and it has been such a long time, it almost feels like a shun not to say hello, congratulations, how are you? will it be in the queen anne safeway, at the gas station, will it be out of a half-guilty-conscious invite to hang with us? c’mon it’ll be fine. like no-thing has passed. there was a time when i thought we would be friends forever. attend each other’s weddings, meet each other’s kids. imagine that, makes me tear up just thinking about it. i’ll always love you. i will always be hoping the best for you. 

i think of you all the time. do you think of me? as much/often as i think of you? you probably don’t. and maybe that is the difference between us.. i think i’ve always known that in a way; i loved you better/more than you knew how to love me/each other. 

more than a partner to be with, i wanted a group, a gang, to have comradery and love with. that’s what i wanted, more than a relationship. i wanted a crew. my group. my group.

[allthatwehear]

how can i help?

I cannot continue my schoolwork -- chest heavy and eyes itching to brim with tears -- until I get something out, just a little bit, about this powerful excerpt from a book I just read.

Low and behold, it is about suffering. something we as human beings -- bleeding, breathing, existing, emotional, human species all understand, to one degree or another.

yet i like to hold myself in high esteem, suffering. i think i am a some sort of unique person, having experienced the suffering that i have as a mere 22, almost 23 year-old. i have been told by people older than me, “more than should be experienced by someone your age”, “well-acquainted with suffering than anyone should ever have to be”. I know this is all true, and you’re just making my suffering-head bloat at the sound of it. i know i have gone through suffering; trust me, i know. the key is, i didn’t ask to. so no shit -- sorry -- do i know it is irregularly more than anyone should go through. but we must also recognize there are aspects of, it could be worse... it could be. 

but for now. i hope this does not offend; i’d like to talk just about my experiences. but also note with a deep heart -- i still consider myself ridiculously privileged, ridiculously so, and that is coming from someone who has lost a sibling to suicide and a sibling to cancer. people have faced over-stimulation of racial trauma, discrimination, loss of life due to hate crimes, sexual abuse, parental/guardian abuse, losses of total families, and so, so much more...

my point? there is so much suffering out there.

my other point? why the hell do people (many people I know) run from it, ran from me? as i was experiencing the -- dun dun dun -- dreaded suffering? well i think i finally have some answers, and they are both heartbreaking, maddening, throw a fucking chair to the wall, and deeply... human. the flicker of hope? changeable. people’s inability to handle and hold someone’s suffering is.. changeable. their lack of holding suffering is.. changeable. so will you change it? will you work towards helping others in the midst of their pain?

“Nobody teaches us to face suffering in this society. We never talk about it until we get hit in the face.” Boy have I heard that before: with grief, too. It should say, “nobody teaches us to face suffering in America”, ha, bingo. 

And with each continued read statement, my mind cheered yes, yes... yes.. This happened to me. I felt like they felt this way. Oh my god. Why did they interpret it this way? Why did they run? Why... why.. why?

“The way in which we deal with suffering has much to do with the way in which we are able to be of service to others... But the experience of suffering--in ourselves and in others--triggers off complicated reactions. To investigate these is itself an act of compassion, an essential step toward becoming more effective  instruments of mutual support and healing”. 

READ THIS DAMN ARTICLE, JUST FUCKING READ IT. 

file:///C:/Users/sarah/Downloads/Suffering.pdf 

[allthatwehear]

the anthropocene

the universe’s payback, to make us bear the burden of life and death and be responsible for it

we have the power to change literally everything, put the circle of life on our shoulders because we are the ones who inevitably doomed it

so is this the price we pay? for meddling -- now we must bear the grief consequences of killing the earth (feel the loss)

[allthatwehear]

J

i hope the rain don’t come too soon

you like dark tv shows (like Hannibal); you were so into the saps, gosh, Outlander and Game of Thrones were a couple of your favorites.

You loved music. Like basically any kind, any genre (except country); you didn’t discriminate. And I often found, a week or two after I showed you a song, you added it to your playlist. You played me that uncanny Trevor Hall song and I got fucking shivers. 

I miss you. I still wish maybe you had written something for me, maybe like a letter to each of us. Just something verbal in my mind that isn’t you gripping my hands, telling me you’re going to live. 

You don’t really know the last time you’re going to see someone is; when is the last time you are going to hold someone’s hand, or give them a hug? Last time you’re going to go on a vacation with your sibling. Last time you’re going to give your dad a hug. 

[allthatwehear]

another letter to someone i lost

marta. i would like to add my voice before it is perhaps lost in the months (or whatever it might be) that we don’t speak. I have trouble justifying your actions towards me; how the roles have reversed, it feels as if i am to blame. 

[allthatwehear]

for the archives

I know that 2020 was a bad year for us all (at least, presumably), and I’m not kidding when I say that on December 31st, 2019, something dropped in the pit of my stomach, and I felt deeply afraid of what was to come.

I’d spent new years by myself in the big, hill-top, slightly raggedy house I’d been living in all summer. There were talks of venturing to the snow-clad cabin for new years with some school friends, but I couldn’t get work off. 

It started poorly, and it certainly ended poorly. But the nagging sensation carried into the New Year. And I mean this wasn’t just like a “since I had a bad New Year’s Eve it’s going to be a bad year” type of feeling. This was like, a total wave of darkness; like that night I was in the house and all the lights were off, and I was stumbling around blind, hands outstretched, wondering why I felt such doom and complete and total fear. Waiting for the light to be flicked back on but it stayed dark the whole year. The whole year. 

There was a similar instinct amongst my family the evening-prior to when my first sis died. I do believe there is something somewhat biological, animalistic about us humans – these psychic, predictive washings that come over us.

Regardless - I’ve been learning to listen to myself. Because, since that New Years I have been uncharacteristically predictive; my senses are so keen. Since I have taught myself to listen, I know now when there is a situation that is bad for me. I can feel it. I can.

And I felt it, that night, into the day. Nineteen days into the new year, I was on my first flight home from Seattle to Colorado, to see my oldest sibling in the hospital. Their tumor (Juge goes by they/them) had grown significantly. It was causing head aches, dizziness, weakness. Radiation wasn’t working. Something wasn’t working anymore.

I am sitting on my bed in a beautiful room with a sliding glass door, palm trees swaying outside. There’s rain coming and I can smell it in my room. I just moved to California. I mean i packed my car in a little over 40 minutes, and drove to southern California, to move in with my mom and her husband Daniel. And as I am in this place of unfamiliar peace & surroundings of love -- I mean, Seattle fucking pushed me out -- a year later, after Juge’s death, and I’m coming to process what happened to me.

here is my process, if you would like to read it. i dunno why you people like to, sometimes. you’ve got me thinking about writing a book about grief, or maybe my experiences. but that seems like freaking dog poop, who would read that -- lol.

i’ve been staring at my eyes in my twin mirrors in this foreign, new bedroom -- it’s all rushing back -- almost like i’m living it all over again because i hadn’t yet had a moment to let it all wash over me -- all.

woosh.

now that i am not in survival mode (ask me why seattle was harsh, i’ll tell you.) it feels like I am again -- sleeping on that blow up bed in maddie (my other sister’s) office room. I am again walking the white halls of the hospital. I’m sitting on Juge’s plush bed, making Juge laugh. I liked to do that, because humor is sometimes the only thing I know how to do, when Juge is sitting there, looking so sick. they were easy to make laugh, too. and their laugh -- oh, so sweet. high-pitched and cute; their eyes crinkle up like mine do: mine and juge’s “eyes smile” when we smile.

at this time last year, i was flying back and forth to the hospital (during school, in-person school, yeah,) I was flying with my head down on the airplane, nudged in between two people and unable to have the freedom to cry, so all I could do was hide my face. wait for the nightmare to be over. numbly listen to mom talk & answer my questions in the car ride “home”. to be honest, it already felt like i was being driven to a funeral and juge hadn’t died yet. to be honest, I wish that maybe I was. I wished that I was just being driven to the end of it all, not have to go through the visible/death part of it all.

Post-Death

my best school friend from Seattle wouldn’t talk to me on my birthday. I was told I was having emotional breakdowns “an unreasonably frequent amount of times” (don’t worry this person is blocked on instagram -- now -- ) by another. and once housesitting, I stared into an empty sink with a knife near my wrist -- for an entire day, just staring. 

I lost so many people. so so, so so many. it wasn’t just juge. it was friends, who made pivotal imprints on my time in Seattle; so much so that being there feels like a stomach ache, a place I had to learn to “reclaim” and quickly (and yet for survival) create my own personal associations. “rewrite history” -- the history of betrayals, and deep harms.

how can one person endure so much loss? I ask myself that every. fucking. day.

I don’t know why you left me, if you’re reading this. maybe my situation scared you. but I hope you do know that leaving someone when they just lost someone, if you were a friend of mine, is not quite fathomable. and i hope that if you were ever given the choice -- if you reincarnated, built a time machine and went back, you’d change your mind and do it differently. if you find that one of your own -- well, i used to be one of your own -- if you find that someone in your life loses someone soon, i hope that you will stand by them. that’s all I’ll say in that regard. but i wish you never left.

it’s flooding back to me. i’m reading old journal entries and they’re an old Sarah saying “how are you still alive?!”. i guess i moved to california and i’m looking to put those old pieces back together.

but the stabs -- the stab wounds are still there. and they’re blaring into my eyes like a bright sun (eyelids, red) and though they’re shut tightly I still see visions, imprints, moments of ordering a quesadilla at the hospital but that was the last thing I ate before Juge died; of actually sitting down, politely, at a table at a coffee shop right after the phone call with my mom that “you gotta come home” and did homework; flashbacks of... oh my god, did this happen to me...? did i really go through this, last year...? 

oh yeah. i did. 

you lose so much more than the person you lost. you lose your mind. you lose your energy. you lose your memory & your ability to navigate your life. you lose parts of yourself that you loved. you lose friends. you lose family. you don’t actually just lose the person. there is a lot tangled into grief.

and i’ve learned that you very quickly get used to losing things. 

I guess i process when i move. i’ve been dancing a lot. i’ve been processing with some really beautiful, really wise, really incredibly wicked friends who I am blessed to have are quite a few years older than me -- i’d say this is helpful for me though, at least where i am mentally (or where grief takes you to mentally, sometimes). i’ve been processing through meditation. i’ve been allowing myself to invest in new parts; let the old rust and slow their gears, and the new... is exciting. she is different, but she is becoming *whole*. 

i’m learning that walking away is easier and attachments are meant to be lost sometimes and literally every single person in this universe has something so deep and treasuring to teach you in life -- oh, it is lovely. i cannot express my gratitude for the things i have learned from gorgeous, stellar social-justice fighting, art loving, delightful, supportive, accepting loves who god !!!!!! somebody gave me to meet; to cup chin and say “you’re worth it, you’re worth it, my dear”. 

i have found new purpose and meaning for life. and that is literally, that sometimes life doesn’t have meaning. 

this is she. she living in california. signing off. 

(if you are struggling with grief, in any form, there is an amazing account that’s brought me a lot of comfort. @griefuncovered and @grief.is.a.river are lovely.)

[allthatwehear]

spiral patterns

watch “Anima” by thom yorke, on netflix.

watch that shit over and over and over again, and allow it to make you feel. 

i know you hate writing things down because it just feels repetitive of the day or unhelpful, but i think it’s important so you remember your memories. you remember those feelings. and you validate them and remember that you were feeling them. 

last night you couldn’t sleep without turning the lamp on for a few hours. and this has been happening sometimes, at the seattle home; usually when marta is not there. but even sometimes then you’ve gotten scared. you’re staying in the guest room at dad’s house, and you felt the air get stale, close, something go dead silent a couple times -- almost like pressure was caving in on your ears and you couldn’t hear a thing, it was just deafening, deafening, so you roused yourself and you got scared. 

just days ago you were cuddled on maddie’s bed, holding her deeply. crying with her. you maybe hadn’t done this/witnessed/been involved in a time of comforting her since that time she had a panic attack in what was later your bedroom at the mead house. i think you helped her then, but then, too, she was uttering hurried “sorry sarah, I didn’t want you to see this”. she wouldn’t stop saying that she was sorry. only come to realize, with the disheartening drop of your stomach, that perhaps she barely remembered most of that last night after all. she didn’t remember what we talked about in the beginning; the things she admitted to me -- the things I admitted to her. I don’t think she remembered those the next morning; i don’t think she remembered how i told her i was so sad, that i was trying to convince her that i wasn’t all well or perfect just because i haven’t taken to drinking or drugs like other people or her and dad -- that actually, i think it’s sometimes more of a curse, this way, because I don’t have something to numb the pain (codependent no more), i am actually just going through the pain and the trauma un-medicated; fully conscious, fully aware, fully experiencing the pain. that i cry so hard i ask to just kill me, kill me of a broken heart. that i’m angry perhaps i’m not numbing it somehow, the deaths of my siblings and the heartache of my messed up family (& being so alone, not trusting/relating to any of them, that i feel dead ass crazy.. alone). i don’t get drunk all the time to take it away. being high doesn’t make me feel any better. i don’t have a way to sort of bury myself out of it.i wanted to tell her those things that night, when she seemed to think i didn’t suffer, or i was so “brave”, or she was so proud of me. no, maddie, I’ve wanted to die. no, maddie, when you told me dad was mad at me on the phone and I was driving past beautiful sunny beaches, and mom had already betrayed me and i was crumbling and that was seriously the last thing i needed to hear -- i told maddie i was in a fragile state -- and she killed me, she just killed me. she just nearly killed me. 

and sometimes i think about leaving this family of mine behind. actually, how much healthier i might be that way. to let them all go. because mom didn’t even visit her child who was dying, she was too concerned about her & daniel getting food at the hospital cafeteria and finding the right cup of coffee, she wouldn’t let her daughter come out to her in solace because she was angry that she was driving when maybe i was on my suicidal-death-bed. because no matter how much i have adored maddie all my life, she left me to oregon without a second thought, after caroline had just died. that as soon as maddie got a little ahead of me in maturity, her love for me was quickly replaced by desires for attention, and her attention given to men, and partners, instead of me, her family. who is permanent; who is not fickle; even despite me being the last sibling left, that i am not even given the ounce of attention that juge or caroline were, necessarily. and that i simply cannot trust maddie with everything in my life anymore; that actually, i remain so guarded from her because at any moment i could say the wrong thing and i could lose her. that no, i do not feel love from her. that i could sit all day in dad’s house for him to only watch football, while i nearly get through the half of an entire book. because i need to entertain myself. because i feel that i was supposed to stay in his company today, because we were gone all day & i’ve spent so much time with maddie, but when that finally comes -- we spend no time together. we barely say any words to each other. and by the end of the night he is high and puffing and speaking so fast and quickly skipping through netflix shows & giving me his unwarranted opinion on them and demanding me “what shows have you seen” and suddenly here I am sitting, wondering how much better I would be off with them barely in my life. 

pretending i have a different life. because in a sense, they have abandoned me as much. i just want love. i just want them to check in on me. and ask about me. and love me as much as the love each other -- as much as they have each other, daniel & mom and dad & maddie. it’s not fair, if you think about it. meanwhile i am here running amock, and did you notice? i’ve actually done quite well without them there; that’s the point, i think. I’ve been doing this, without them, for a long time. and i do, worse, emotionally/physically/mentally, when i am with them. and i get uncomfortable with them maybe trying to be incorporated in my life? but it is at this point, more of something that i just give to them. i just see them sort of out of pity and obligation, but really it doesn’t help me. they don’t help me. sometimes I doubt that they even care about me. because i do just fine on my own. here’s the reality: i haven’t relied on them in a looong time. not since maddie left me and i realized, maybe she didn’t love me (or could) as much as I needed a sibling too. and it’s bullshit that she can’t love like a sibling could, because look how she could care for juge? maddie and dad talk every morning, maddie said. he always tells her his problems. and today, walking the dogs? i tried to encourage him that he could talk to me, but he didn’t say a word. 

i am better off on my own. in many ways, if they want to pursue the relationship, and actually get to know me, they can. but they will have to prove it, and work for it. in the end, these people that are my family make me feel more alone than i ever feel unalone. they make me feel more isolated and different vastly widely totally totally unlike them and alone than anyone else in the world i spend time with. 

i spent all day reading a book, while my dad watched football. maddie only seems to be interested in me if i am drinking alcohol, or we’re drinking together. they’re almost like a limb that i just want to cut off. because i can talk about maddie and i living in the same area or her coming to california to visit sometime and that will probably never happen. they’re all just empty hopes that dissipate in the air, and i usually know in reality i am probably the one who is wanting (dying them) to happen more than she is wanting it to happen. i am the one pining for this closeness and intimacy and connection and love, when actions such as described above pretty loudly clearly display their instability and fickleness. that usually i am the one pining after love. 

[allthatwehear]

why would we settle for anything less -

then the way they look at you, as if you are some mythical being they cannot comprehend to lay eyes upon. like you’re a force, or an emotion, or a feeling that they have never felt before. their minds are hooked as if you are sugar, or drugs, or some sort of substance they can’t get enough of. they don’t want to stop holding your hand; they don’t want to let (you) go. spindly, long pale fingers graze your slightly numb/frigid ones in the bright yellow rays that strike green (camp casey fields, the classic house that sits picture-esque across the way). why wouldn’t you want them to play with those fingers, both arms outstretched towards the top of the tent, shadow figures/puppets, or murmurs of indignation against the scary stories, giggly-told. why wouldn’t you want the elegant, gentlemanly displays of affection - the coat swept over your shoulders, trench or jean. tickles during a fight, or during a movie. remembering your favorite drink of coffee. even if its the brief walk across the park, maybe to grab that coffee, arm swings below to find your hand. and you know that this person will make you feel safe. and you know that this person really loves you, because they can’t get enough of you. and they’re always watching, or staring, or observing, or asking, or listening, or consoling, or fighting (for you, to keep you), or laughing. how beautiful it will be to see places unseen before with them. 

a friend who was/is still in love, said the other day: “it was hard, because i’d do all these things with hallie (or other girls - “things” as in dates, excursions, adventures) and I’d just want to be doing them with Roxanne.” what a perfect way to verbalize it - how beautiful, how genuinely intended. you know the experience would be enhanced with them. you just want them to be there. ho beautiful it is -- to be in love. as my dad says, “it’s worth it”, even though i struggled through tears and loss of weight and fatigue, “it isn’t.” why would it be worth it if it hurt so bad? love is the most powerful force on earth. love. love. and sometimes i think of the phrases, the other genuine words songs/people say - i just wish i’d had you all my life. and i wonder if, as our days are numbered, i just want to have you, too. have you now so that i can get as much time with you as possible. so we can climb mountains and over shores, and fly on airplanes and go on drives with greasy food. and you can hold me and pull back my hair when im crying. 

why would we ever settle for anything less? then someone truly, really loving you? being in love with you? needing you, wanting you, picking you, helping you, searching for you? 

[allthatwehear]

the starling flew for days

something about when I am sleep deprived seems to make me feel a whole lot more ~

i suddenly feel invincible with any difficult conversation I may need to have - i feel like i am most myself, without guards - that i am soft, unequivocally so, but also strong - like you are seeing the real, sarah. the one who is not hesitating on her thoughts. the one who might cry at a soft, specific melody or note, or even by the love of her friends & their expressions of tenderness. 

everything makes me want to cry. everything is touching my heart, so gently - so sweetly.