Love Notes II
more things left unsaid
No matter how hard you fall, I’ll always be running to catch you. Do you know this? (Please tell me you know this.)
When I ripped the tape off the belated birthday package you sent, something broke in me in one of those so-beautiful-you-just-have-to-gasp-and-sob moments. How do you manage to make me feel cared for in the deepest of ways from so far away?
I can’t believe another Wednesday has passed, and I still haven’t knocked on your office door.
Can you even believe we survived that shit? I still look around and think: life must always have you in it now, because who else would have the answer to this question: WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT?
Do you think we’re losing sight of each other? Do you think that’s okay? I know we love each other anyway.
You’re preparing for baby #2, but I still need to meet toddler #1. Play her a Taylor Swift song for me.
Every spring I consider driving out to you. Will you let me this year? I promise I won’t judge your kitchen.
I have this fantasy that when we go downtown in two weeks, time will turn back, and we will step into 2008 when Wicked was just the perfect stage production, and we learned that crying in front of your friends is okay. (We also learned to check the date on the ticket before going downtown.)
This might be blasphemy, but since we’re only former Catholics, I think it’s safe to confess: I really go to fish fries for the pierogis. (Moment of truth: french fries or pierogis, btw?)
I have to resist asking how you’re feeling just about every single day. I keep thinking TWINS! and wanting to run around one of our bedrooms screaming and reliving every nostalgic moment of our childhoods when it felt like you were my twin. I think there is a part of me that will always know you kind of are.
I don’t think I got to know you more. Should we try it this year maybe?
Erie keeps coming up in conversations around me; you keep coming to mind.
I managed not to kiss you last year, but I still can’t quite figure out if I’m proud of myself for learning when to let a feeling pass or whether I missed an opportunity to be wild and enjoy the ride.
Sometimes when my heartburn isn’t raging and I let myself drink black coffee, I remember how you introduced me to it. Can you still handle it, or have your 30s found your esophagus too?
Please text me back.
I’m still watching Grey’s, but now I’m also watching The Pitt. I feel certain you’d like it more. I wish you worked in this crazy city of medical professionals, because I still miss you just as much as I did last year.
I absolutely MUST know about that thing you mentioned and then never explained. I’m dying of nebbiness over here.
What if I forgave myself and forgot to tell you?
I wonder what thoughts of yours I would have heard if I hadn’t ghosted that group. I wonder whether we might learn to function outside the group.
I’m so glad we hugged, but I really need to come back. Will I ever get it together with showing up in your life?
What if the joy is lost, and what if I don’t remember who you are?
I told some of the people I work with about how we went to that yoga class where they had us take our bellies out and caress them the way pregnant people get to do without shame, and everyone stared like I had told them unicorns were real. We kind of are unicorns, though, don’t you think?
What do you really think about being an eldest daughter and a mother?
If I don’t get on that plane this year, please get on one instead and come commandeer my porch.
I miss you more often than I’d like to. Let’s fix it.
Do you still walk into a room like everything is meant to stop just for you? (It honestly should tbqh.)
They raised us not to meet strangers from the internet, but the joke’s on them because you were anything but a stranger.
Would you believe me if I told you I’m still thinking about Wuthering Heights?
I GOT IN THE MOTHERFUCKING SADDLE. (I think I did say it, actually, but it bore repeating.)
As legend has it, later this year none of my cells will remember you anymore. I don’t know whether I will laugh or cry about that.
I promise to keep sending you Spotify links even though I have Apple now. I promise to always pick you up one more time. I promise I’ll actually read Trying this year. I promise I’ll always get to your drafts even if I get there obnoxiously late. I promise those chickpeas really were as fire as I remembered. I promise my husband didn’t reheat them the way that you could. I promise our friendship transcends husbands and time zones and too many email accounts and whining dogs and closed restaurants and insane bosses and pregnancies and yet another Ticketmaster atrocity. I promise I’d come rescue you right now if I could. As soon as the first real day of spring hits, those chairs outside Millie’s are OURS.
I still love you x 31.
XOXOXO,
Ash 💜
PS: A standing question I have for myself is: how can art hold space for the mundanity of daily life alongside what is going on in the world? So far, this newsletter has been a field log for micronoticings and the way they teach me something larger than the moment itself. I have no idea whether that is “enough” of a reason to take up space on the Internet in the times we are living in. While I continue to learn and question this, I would like to highlight a writer each month who is putting their time and energy into macronoticings so that we all can keep learning at the various levels of noticing available in this life. This month, I’m sharing adrienne maree brown with you in gratitude and in continued learning of my own. She’s taught me a lot about love & pleasure. I return to her every February at least, but her teachings stay with me all through the year. 💖