From Her (Part 3/Final Part)

from her part 3 / final part

00 i n t r o d u c t i o n hello! it’s been exactly 6 months since i graduated from college on may 22nd. in the past half year, i experienced new relationships, severed ones, rekindled ones, redefined ones. among those relationship changes is the one i have with myself. i learned how fragile plans are, how strong thoughts are, and how equally fragile and strong the human heart is. but i hope that despite the changes, losses, and new experiences i will have being 22 years old, my love for writing and sharing it with others will never change. what i wish for myself and for all of us is to cherish the people and opportunities we have more deeply, and to never stop loving boldly – sometimes, recklessly. so while reading the third and final part of “from her,” i hope you can also dig deeper into the emotions you’ve been running away from, regardless if my writing is personally relevant or not. allow yourself to feel. i am so grateful that our emotional experiences and ability to bond through them are what make all of us uniquely different yet universally the same. enjoy. <3

01

the best compliment

is that someone feels safe with you

I sleep under five blankets, even in the hottest nights when the air smells like sewage after the humid summer rain. My blankets provide a sense of protection and comfort no inanimate thing or human can bring me at night, when the doubts and insecurities in my head grow a little louder, a little meaner, a little truer. I wrap my small fingers tightly around my layered blankets, tugging them closer to my tired face. My blankets smell of jasmine and white violet from my lingering perfume. I close my eyes. I pay attention to the rising and falling of my chest as I pray for myself. The five blankets over me seem to offer me protection from who knows what. I fall asleep and dream of him.

He feels like a weighted blanket, especially on the coldest nights when the air smells like salty tears and sweat after crying into his arms. He provides a sense of protection and comfort no inanimate thing or human has ever brought me, and when the doubts and insecurities in my head grow a little louder, a little meaner, a little truer, his words are much softer, much kinder, much truer. I wrap my small arms tightly around him and rest my tired face on his chest.

He smells of wood sage and sea salt from his lingering cologne. I close my eyes. I pay attention to the rising and falling of his chest as he prays for me.

He seems to offer me protection from myself. I fall asleep in his arms and dream of us.

it caught me off guard after others called me hard to love for you to end things because you said it would be hard on me

a smart mouth meets a stammering one to learn that comfortable silence can also be fun

everything you did was cute from when you searched up what “fervent” meant to when you hid your face behind your hands when i said i didn’t know what safety meant until meeting you.

02

i want you to let go

her: i want you to let go to let yourself drown in the possibility of being loved by me to let your desire be greater than your fear of seeing me struggling and aching and finding it hard to breathe in the abundance of air you’ve given me. him: i want you to let go to let yourself drown the possibility of loving me to know that when my desire triumphs my fear of seeing you struggling and aching and finding it hard to breathe i will panic and drag you down with me.

cherish someone like you will lose them tomorrow cherish someone like you will be with them forever

i wish you drove to the car wash near the inn to buy us more time and soak with me wordlessly in sadness and gratitude.

i rose today feeling dazy like i was pricked by a rose thorn that made my body wilt like a daisy.

you self-sabotaged and fled the scene like you were an actor i caught out of character. you drew me into your present and teased me with a future, then left me with silence, a deafening pain with no cure.

must every star in the sky, every city in the world, every dream in our heads, and every decade in our lives align for you to let yourself be loved today?

you are one text away one call away one visit away from making me do something reckless.

03

7 weeks later

He sits quietly in the nook of the coffee shop, shoulders slumped forward with the unseen weight of hurt and responsibility. she laughs loudly in the center of the coffee shop, shoulders bouncing up and down in joy from light banter with the barista. he orders a cold brew as bitter as the words people have thrown callously at him. yet he has stomached them with such endurance that his tummy aches uncontrollably. she orders a lavender latte as sweet as the words she tells him. yet she has withheld from herself the same warmth with such stubbornness that her body shivers uncontrollably. “how’s yours?” he asks, eyeing the drink in her hand. “good,” she replies with a dimpled smile. “try mine,” he says as she brings his cold brew to her lips. the bitterness is what first hits her. “interesting,” she says politely. It tastes of the tears he doesn’t show her, and it tastes of his grief over what he cannot stop or control. “do you want to try mine?” she says as she slides her drink across the table. she watches and waits for his reaction. she hopes he tastes of gentleness and care and goodness.

“it’s good,” he says genuinely, but she knows he prefers the bitterness of the cold brew. she takes her own drink back and wonders what unspoken thoughts he has. the clean air manages to feel heavy between them, their unaligned twenty-something-years-old dreams and fear of the future making the long distance feel even greater. he begins. “sorry. I feel like I should-” “we can just sit. I don’t mind the silence,” she lies. she averts her gaze to a barking dog and wishes she could scream out with her loud voice, too. her mind begins racing with questions. he nods and doesn’t move, but she knows without looking that his eyes hold an ocean of sadness. and she knows nothing she says, no matter how kind or true, can help. she finishes her latte quickly to soothe her discomfort unfitting the peace of the coffee shop. time passes too slowly and too quickly. her shoulders drop. his tummy aches. her body shivers. his shoulders stay still. they sit quietly across from each other – a boy with loud thoughts and a kind heart and a girl with a loud laugh and a kind mouth – and they don’t leave until all the ice in their cups melt along with the answers she’ll never get.

y o u s a y “ ma y b e i n t h e f u t u r e ” n o t u n d e r s t a n d i n g t h a t s o me people enter your life only once and never again.

when i see you killing your own body, i treat it as if you are killing mine.

i w i l l e d my s e l f n o t t o f a l l a p a r t waiting for your car to drive a w a y t h e s a me w a y y o u u s e d t o will yourself not to fall asleep w a i t i n g f o r my c a l l t o c o me i n .

you don’t like how we can’t share the same sunset but forget how precious it is to share the same sky.

you told my friend you no longer loved her, as if you knew how to in the first place.

you should be scared her wrath is eternal like the hell you gave her, each time your fists grabbed her hair. it would be too sweet if all she did was ruin your favorite song. so i keep an eye out for cop cars as she tosses your limbs into the ocean for the chorus of demons that welcome you home in unison. we drive back home that night, blood etched into our hair, and we hum melodically to the sound of your silence.

she called me to say she wanted to fix her face, when i knew it was her heart that needed healing after you crushed it so casually and called it “growing pains.”

reminders for yourself

04

happy 22nd to me

love boldly. let love gut you open, and let love heal you.

assess wisely. not everything perfect on paper is perfect for you.

dance publicly. let yourself feel. your shamelessness will let others do the same.

appreciate fully. tomorrow is not a promise. only the here and now are guaranteed.

live authentically. speak your mind. even if it comes out as a whisper.

hug tightly. your embrace will give people the permission to cry hard and feel safe with you.

try courageously. take the leap of faith. never let fear win.

endure lovingly. but never tolerate bad behavior.

empathize deeply. cry hard when other people are suffering. even if it tears you apart all the same.

give willingly. your time, your knowledge, your resources. don’t let money and power control you.

laugh loudly. feel it in your gut. take it in - how beautiful life is with people you love.

sleep peacefully. put your anxiety into a mental box and stow it away for the night. dream sweetly.

learn consistently. the moment you assume you know everything about someone is the moment you begin taking them for granted.

monitor wisely. the kind of books you read. the people you allow into your life. the voices that tell you ten things at once.

protect fiercely. your boundaries. your needs. your values. your heart.

surrender completely. the things you try to control will control you.

ask bravely. a closed mouth will never be fed.

heal persistently. invest deeply in your mental and emotional health.

eat happily. your worth is not dependent on your ability to starve a body that does everything to keep you alive.

forgive earnestly. but don’t forget. grieve what was lost. remember how pain feels. but never reduce others to monsters.

write openly. express your emotions through words, even if that vulnerability terrifies you, embarrasses you, or leads to false assumptions about you.

and celebrate daily. the person you are and the person you will become. the gift of life you get to share with loved ones. happy 22nd birthday. <3

before i could stop myself, my feet were running towards you, embracing you from behind. all my resentment disappeared at the sight of you.

we sit across from each other in your new york apartment, sharing cold scrambled eggs and warm scattered memories.

you showed me a glimpse of what true kindness looks like in a world eager to tear us down.

10:29pm november 22, 2001 welcome to life, dear. in the brief number of years you have, rise everyday to love and to be loved. feel it in your bones. tell people you love them. hug them a little longer. it’s okay to be afraid. let yourself feel. cry hard when you’re sad. heal with confidence. soon, you’ll learn that everything is a gift, from the body you’ll first learn to hate before you love, to the people who will come and go. embrace it all. sing joyfully. cry loudly. love deeply. live boldly.

05

outro

dear reader, January of this year, it was my therapist who inspired me to create “from her” part 1 after a year of being the unfortunate recipient of my misdirected rage. :) she was wise and knew what i needed: to lean into and articulate my emotions so i could give myself the closure certain people wouldn’t give me. i’m finally 22, but parts of me feel like i’ll always be an angsty teenager with an explosive desire to rip things apart and scream about everything. other parts of me feel like i don’t even know what being a child feels like anymore, to have “normal” humor and light-hearted thoughts. but i realized writing is what helps me reclaim my childlike self again. i can explore the pettiest, darkest, angriest, saddest, and most desperate emotions, and no one can do anything about it (mwahaha). i don’t have to undervalue the impact short experiences made on me or move on quickly from long experiences that have effects i’ll probably wrestle with until i pass. i don’t have to shame myself for writing about trauma, hurt, anger, love, men/boys. i can be a loud woman with loud thoughts about love, and people can embrace or hate that as they wish. i can claim all my emotions and move forward with life without succumbing to the pressure to forget.

because, doesn’t love touch almost everything we do and experience? i think i need to stop forcing myself to try writing about happy things like nice vacations and cats and good shopping deals, when really, all i want to write about is love: the presence, absence, welcoming, letting go, fear, acceptance, nurture, and abuse of it. i’m not sure what my next piece will be about. but i’ve been encouraged to see how the three parts of “from her” have evolved. i’ll always be a little dark, but i do feel lighter, happier, and brighter. i’m healing, perhaps, and i do need to give credit to God, my family, and my friends for that. i know i will never be able to capture the infinite range of experiences, identities, and emotions in this world, so to have your listening ears and curious mind means a lot. thank you. i hope you enjoyed reading all three parts of “from her,” and that they inspire you to also share pieces of your unfinished story with others in a loving and authentic way that brings out your inner child. with care, jess