Lately I’ve been thinking about real love. The one that remains. The kind that endures. The one who will sit beside you for hours in a hospital, be there when your parents grow sick and pass away. The kind that will handle the errands and put away the dishes because you’re too tired from the day to move. The kind that is present not just in laughter, ease, play and fun.
It’s easy to love when it’s all going well. When you’re feeling butterflies. When you’re pretzeled together on the cozy couch laughing at your favorite Ben Stiller movie. When you get a promotion. When you are in good health. When there’s plenty and it all feels certain.
Yeah, anyone can love that.
But what about when the clouds swallow the sun? When your body aches and the room smells of Vicks and Bengay? When income isn’t steady? When the phone rings with the news that family is unwell? When the bills cascade across the kitchen table and suddenly life is not photogenic?
What then?
Man, I’m a sucker for the magic. For the awe and wonder of life. But can I also be okay with the reality too? With the darkness? With the difficult chapters? Can I also love then?
Where do I start? Do I tell you about my gripes with unhinged capitalism? The passage of time? Or the general news of my aching heart?
“Where to from here?”
This is the question that keeps spinning in my mind like a vinyl record. Among several others.
I feel too much. Think too much. Do just enough. Or perhaps too much of the wrong thing, I can’t tell.
I am fighting with myself 24/7.
Mostly, I feel anger, dread and sadness lately.
So I started taking Saffron. Apparently they say it’s meant to help with mood. I could feel it sort of working, or perhaps it’s the placebo affect. I feel this sort of synthetic happiness. Like I can tell I am elevating a little but underneath is still this sort of polluted river.
I think I need to prioritize more of me. Stop getting back into cycles where I fall for a man and end up broken in the end. I’m over that circus.
Today I felt okay being alone. Trying to hold strong and not respond to my ex. Not go back to the past and focus on the future.
Anyway, the world feels cooked.
I refuse to stay quiet about it. I am not going to sit here while prices keep going up without pushing back on this nonsense. Is the answer to push back or elevate myself and others? What does that even mean? I don’t know.
What does it mean to elevate anyway? I don’t know.
A part of me is growing weary.
The other part is stubborn and refuses to give up hope.
I sort of feel like a Billie Eilish song and spirit. Just sort of… dead but alive.
—
Right now I stopped looking for romance. I feel closed off to it. Like I will cut a mother fucker who tries to get close to me. Never thought I’d get this closed.
Anyway, nothing too grand to share here today. No poetics. No magic. No fluff.
If this post could taste like something it would probably be a straight shot of whiskey.
It feels like I’ve time traveled and landed in a parallel universe.
I’m numb and in awe.
It’s you, but it’s not you.
Like I’m in a dream.
You’re picking me up in an 80’s Cadillac, no seat belt. Holding the door like a gentleman.
The speedometer trembling to keep up. A dream catcher hanging from your windshield mirror. The lights on the road, purple. It’s as if I’m in a film. I’m again reminded of the magic. The moments of whimsey my heart lives for. The words coming out of your mouth; strangely familiar. Like you traveled from another timeline, except it’s not really you. Just the semblance.
Today you put a watch on my wrist. Like he put a bracelet. It’s like I was re-living the past in a warped reality where time was outside of time. As if dimensions had been collapsed together and I’ve been brought back here with you, except it’s not you. We drove past a store with his name written on it. What? His name.But not him. You. This moment, this car…
“Am I dreaming?”
Some moments in life are so unpredictable. So magical. It reminds me what I live for.
One moment we’re exchanging glances. The next we’re kissing in your bedroom in the dark.
—
On the surface I’m ok, but underneath there is a volcano.
I’m afraid of closeness. Like once you know me it won’t be the same.
And vice versa. Once I know you, maybe it won’t be the same.
—
The roads here make me nostalgic. If there is one word that captures the timbre of my soul, that one is probably it.
Anyway, this weird abstract message is all I have for today. It’s all been so weird lately.
—
I think I want a husband.
Oh, how I wish I could turn back time and make better choices.
How I wish I could transcend.
How I wish it could be me, you, peace, our home and the dogs on the land.
How I wish we could wake up slowly.
Where each dawn by your side feels like a perfect eternity I am grateful to open my eyes in each day;
cozy, warm, soft, safe, indulgent.
How I wish we could unravel gently.
No place to rush to except your embrace.
No bills to worry over,
No lack,
No fear.
Joy.
true, delicious, juicy joy.
Savoring the moment. Mmm.
Excited by the adventure and the unfolding of life like two kids on the night before Christmas.
Trusting that it’s all in alignment.
Trusting we can take beautiful, bold, ecstatic leaps knowing in full faith the nets will appear – always, without fail. Knowing that even in moments of challenge we get to make the best of the adventure.
Knowing that we have each other, peace, love, life, and the land.
Oh, how I wish it were so.
What really matters in love? Truly?
At the end of the effing day, when it is all said and done — what’s left?
What actually matters?
I keep circling back to this phrase: the full package.
But what does that even mean?
It’s hard to say when there are different types of love.
Love from mother to child.
Love from friend to friend.
Love from person to object.
Love from person to God.
Sibling love.
Romantic love.
You name it…
but what is IT?
Does love have a core?
Are these just branches on the same sprawling tree?
Is it a feeling?
An experience?
An idea?
An act?
An expression?
A combination of these?
A thing which cannot be explained in words?
GAHHH.
Why are we humans so complicated?
Is that part of the fun?
Relationships can be complicated.
When we love, we ache to keep it. We lay claim: my boyfriend, my partner, my person. And in that claiming, fear creeps in. We don’t want to lose them. We don’t want to see them laughing in the corner with someone else. So we make rules. We get jealous. We clutch tight.
Maybe that’s just where we are in our evolution. Still learning. Still human. Still attached.
And still, I wonder: at the core, what is it we really want?
Connection?
Safety?
Something else?
Some say love is a drug. Taste it once, and suddenly you’re hooked. Restless, aching, feening for another hit. You find yourself staring at your phone waiting for that text to come through. One little buzz, that name flashing on your screen and the rush floods in; sharp, fast, like a bump of cocaine.
“I miss you” they say.
You feel high.
But that’s it. No follow up. No change.
You feel low.
Oh, so low.
Sigh.
Hm…
Perhaps there isn’t one neat answer.
Life is too dynamic, too wild, too fluid to be contained by a single defining answer. What may be true today may be false tomorrow. Someone can say “I love you” today and drop you tomorrow. In the wise words of Snoop Dog, “It do be like that sometimes.”
Perhaps love is less of a one size fits all answer but more an art. Perhaps it’s not a thing we can shove into a neat little box slapped with a label that says “love is THIS.” Perhaps it’s more a force that can’t be contained. Perhaps it takes many forms, many names, many flavors, many sounds, many textures, many shapes.
And somehow, all of them different yet all of them true.
What a ride. What a ride.
Every now and then, God seems to send me little surprises. Winks that whisper, “I’m still here. I’m still watching you. I’m listening. I care.”
Like today, when there was an unexpected knock on my door.
In this world, people rarely knock unannounced so obviously I was filled with curiosity, “Who could that be?”
I peeked through the window and saw her—my upstairs neighbor’s mother who’s been visiting for the month to help her daughter. My neighbor is from Brazil, like me, which is something that has bonded us in a tender way. Her mother is a small woman. Her round frame carrying the kind of softness that makes you instantly think of comfort food and unconditional love. The kind of figure that reminds me of an Italian nonna, only in this case, a Brazilian mãe.
She was beaming, holding up a blue-lidded Tupperware like a trophy. Inside: a generous slice of carrot cake covered in glossy brigadeiro icing, our national chocolate treasure. The sight alone felt like home.
Her gesture was so simple, yet it landed in my heart like a divine reminder: You are not forgotten. Not by God, not by humanity, not by life itself. At least that’s the story I chose to believe. And it’s far better than the other one where miracles have dried up and the heavens have turned away.
Because the truth is, life can be unbearably dark sometimes. Heavy enough to crush and test my faith. But then, in moments like this, an old-fashioned knock at the door, a motherly smile, a Tupperware of sweetness…I find myself believing again.
So when in doubt, choose kindness.
I’m an adult. This is the moment I’ve been waiting for, dreaming and pining for since I was 13 and couldn’t wait to grow up.
And now… here I am.
Able to go anywhere, do anything, be anything. WOW.
So now what?
I find myself wasting so much time, unsure how to use it.
What do I even do with all this time?
If I were smarter I would be taking bolder moves.
And slowly, I am.
—
The thing is…life doesn’t always unfold the way you imagine.
The dream doesn’t land on cue.
But I’m stubborn as a mule and despite the piercing disappointments, I continue to stay open to the magic. I continue to dream on and carry on. It just feels better that way.
I’m at a good age. Old enough to know more of myself, young enough to make the world my oyster. I feel confident enough. Okay enough. Grounded enough.
But some days I feel like I don’t know what to do with myself. I feel a bit alone yet so full of life.
These were the days I dreamt about!! So now what?
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