These Ghosts Belong

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These Ghosts Belong 2023

By Nivetha Sundar

Copyright © 2023 by Nivetha Sundar. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permission requests, contact nivetha.sundar1015@gmail.com

“The bravest thing you will ever do is love again.“

Madelyn Beck

A lot has happened, and much has changed in 2023. Work has been challenging, to say the least, and, in extension, the world itself. This year, I didn’t really show the book to a lot of people while I was writing it. Primarily because I’ve been too preoccupied with the mundane aspects of life, but truly, it was because I feel that this book is a little too honest. It’s very haphazard with its tonality, much like the whole year.

I’d fallen a tad more silent and have kept many of the year’s events close to my chest.

That will become apparent as you read on. It’s been difficult to write about a lot of things this year because I’m not sure how I feel about them yet. It seems like my world has been evolving without me and hasn’t quite stopped.

However, in an effort to make this book less about myself and create a means for vicariousness, I ventured out looking for stories from others in my life. The last two times I did this, I’d gathered that most people feel the same way I do about a lot of things, so surely enough, no one is ever alone in this world. And in interviewing five different people about relationships gained and lost, I’ve learned that permanence is overrated.

Change is inevitable, and we’re all just trying to find our way.

So hold my hand through this, will you?

Chapters Yuck

2

Eleanor Rigby

3

Life Is A Bottle; Spinning

3

A Sort Of Self-Inflicted Masochism

4

RSVP

6

A Goldfish Out of Water

7

Thirty, Dirty, and Surviving

9

Hindsight is 30/30

9

What Do Men Talk About?

10

Expatriate

12

Horcruxes

13

Playlist Of The Year

15

All For Love

15

Lucky Charms

17

Girl Code

19

Well, You Win Some & You Lose Some

20

Remember Me

21

Skip This...

23

“And, Scene.”

23

1

Fremont Older

2

Yuck I promised myself that I’d write about Sean this year, instead of secretly sprinkling him into cryptic phrases in this year’s book. He hasn’t asked for it and he’s fine with me being coy. He knows I’m a wuss about being happy. Truthfully, it’s been a hard thing to write about. Where do you start and how do you find the words to express your love for someone you’re afraid to death of losing? That’s what has kept me quiet about him.

We work well together and judging by how our first date went, I didn’t think that we’d still be in this 3 years later. We’ve had our fair share of relationship jitters but aren’t we all risking our hearts with the people we love? Isn’t that the dotted line?

And, he proofreads this you know?!

I’m not one to kiss and tell, but if he hadn’t let me borrow his air mattress to sleep on while I was in between homes, or shared a deflating air mattress in Mt. Shasta, or even go hunting for the perfect queen-sized air mattress for our first camping trip, we wouldn’t be where we are today, still struggling for space in our respective beds and thoroughly enjoying it.

Ew – and no further comment.

3

Eleanor Rigby Some days I wonder if anyone watches me and concocts stories about the kind of person I am, especially in the evenings I spend shopping for groceries. The music playing in my ears is a sham. It does nothing to keep me from getting lost in other people’s stories.

A couple lingers by the frozen food aisle while I dance about in an air of misery and indecisiveness. Does my selection of vegetable patties and frozen gyoza not compare well with their pile of triple berry blend and organic yogurt? Can I be them?.... Can I be her? Shit, am I staring?

I grab the essentials and slink away. A bag of spinach, some cherry tomatoes, a dozen eggs, and $40 later, I walk home. For a moment, (insert Spotify song/artist) cuts through the cold air and reminds me of how far away I feel from reality. All the faces I see behind glass doors on Post St, none of whom I recognize—sometimes including my own—I feel without. I feel like all this food is for no one.

How do people have people? And how do people keep people? When really, we’re all just meant to be lonely people.

Life is a Bottle; Spinning I think I jinxed myself when I wrote last year’s book, that I was somewhat bored of life.

The universe definitely took that as a challenge to usher in a new sense of unease that quite fairly kicked my head in, halfway through January.

For years, I’ve compared my life to a spinning bottle; the last time I could feel it whirling in my head was in 2017, while I was in grad school. I thought that the bottle was the manifestation of all my fears and the expectations I had for myself. All its spinning felt like I had no control over where it would land next, and so I was doing everything in my power to take control; to grasp this bottle and hold it still.

I was so bent on becoming a writer. I’d imagine that one day I’d be writing think pieces, attending New York Fashion Week & penning Op-eds for the likes of the Times or Vogue!

I’d publish my own magazine and have the motivation to keep at it every 6 months. That was supposed to be the goal.

4 However, I didn’t land the dream job that I’d hoped for and it wasn’t for the lack of trying.

Life just happened to take me down a different path and I couldn’t afford to be selective with my choices (or maybe, I felt like I couldn’t). And so with time, those dreams I had of “making it big” kind of faded away, gradually allowing this bottle of mine to come to a pause.

In the past couple of years, I’ve realized that I’d had it all wrong. The spinning never meant that I didn’t have control over life, but it was a coping mechanism. It was the momentum that was pushing me forward through everything and somewhere prior to 2020, I’d lost myself in the emptiness of it.

Today, that bottle began to spin and today I’m more prepared for where it will lead me next. The uncertainty of it still causes a considerable amount of anxiety but hey, at least I’m not bored right?

A Sort of Self -Inflicted Masochism When something is really hard to achieve, a voice in me demands that I ought to pursue it. I used to tell myself when I was younger that the more I suffered to get where I needed to be, the more fruitful and abundant the destination would be. I trusted Robert Frost more than I did my own gut.

So I’d become used to the way I made decisions and actively going after the more challenging things in life, if it meant someone else got to choose an easier path as a result of my choice. And that justified the hardships, the pain, and the struggles.

5

And if I got to that finish line despite those hurdles, I now had something to offer and share with people, like some sort of clout. Or that somehow, my cracking the code to a difficult thing shows that anyone can have what I have. Because I’m the Everyman in my story, written out to be relatable; flawed, and utterly human. An everyday sap who just wants

to

achieve

the

impossible

and

share

their

newly

accumulated

wealth

of

knowledge.

However, that hasn’t been the case. The struggle felt constant and the callouses left from endurance didn’t really fade. It’s hardened along with my soul. And it seemed at the end of every new pursuit was more pain, disappointment, and worst of all, my quest was ironically chasing people away.

So I’ve been trapped in this cycle of going after the next best thing and never really enjoying the pursuit. Always running and never really achieving. Maybe because I got there too late? Or along the journey, I’ve changed and so my needs have changed?

I know it was deeply rooted in wanting validation; by making it easier for people to exist around me. I want to be this beacon of perfection that people can flock to in time of need, but sadly, through all this people are what I’ve sacrificed. I can’t fathom how exactly it led to that but I have an inkling that it’s because people have the power to really break you down. So I keep them at bay. Just far enough so they can judge me based on my achievements, these weird medals of struggle I’ve collected, that one day I hope will be of use. But until then, I think I’ll leave the road less taken for someone else to wander through.

6

RSVP I’m the last person in my group of best friends from college to get married and it’s getting to me. I have nothing but love for these women, but it’s hard to sit here and pretend like I don’t feel just a tiny bit insecure. What’s worse is that I haven’t and won’t be attending any of their weddings because they live far away and the timing's never right. So, to them, all I fear I’ll be is the reminder of the empty seat on the most important day of their lives.

My therapist asked me why I often take the positive wins in someone else’s life to indicate the glaring lack of it in mine. “It’s like, in life, there’s only one basket full of the juiciest apples you could ever have”, I say. “Some are good and some are rotten. Once the good ones are gone, you’re only left with rotten ones and as someone who’s always been a late bloomer, I just assume I’ll have to make do with rotten apples.”

Their world is growing and my biggest fear is that I’ll have no space in their consciousness anymore. Is that selfish or is it valid? Or just because something’s a valid concern wouldn’t mean it wasn’t selfish. Will they ever think of me as often as I think about them?

“But life’s achievements aren’t a zero-sum game”, my therapist says. “Empty seats don’t mean empty hearts.” And after all that, I think I knew what truly worried me. With all the distance and the time that’s separated me from my friends, and my inability to fill up their chairs, should I be expecting empty seats at my wedding?

A Goldfish Out of Water Here’s a list of things I can pull out of my brain storage in a heartbeat. My net worth, the amount of underwear I have left until I have to do laundry, all of my old roommate’s exboyfriends’ names, and the lyrics to Pettai Rap. And yet, this inane filing system of mine fails to retain the information that’s worth remembering. The most recent files to glitch are ones related to birthdays.

I forgot my father’s birthday this year, which is embarrassing to even admit. I forgot three of my friends’ birthdays too. And really, there’s no excuse for forgetting them other than the fact that I’ve been gasping for air, nearly drowning in my latent 20s.

I think somewhere along the line of growing up or growing apart, birthdays have become sort of an object permanence thing. One minute we’re celebrating your 19th year around the sun with a midnight McAloo Tikki burger and the next thing you know, we’re 30, living 9 hours apart, and with each year that passes the chances of me forgetting your birthday have increased twofold. It’s a horrible thing to admit to, but it’s a flaw you’re forced to deal with for being friends with me.

Every time I realize I’ve forgotten, the ritual never changes. My body runs cold and I’m grasping at my phone. Muscling up some half-assed excuse that I know is sub-par because pouring an apology into text never feels enough to wash away the guilt. I overestimate how much further I’ve dug myself into a hole. And that would be the end of us—this friendship would now die because I’ve forgotten this day when the world was blessed with your emergence.

However, I’m often met with quite a forgiving response. “It’s ok, ” they all say but I can never truly tell if it is ok. I wish they’d add an, “I still love you and I don’t hate you” or something more like, “Yeah, you should be sorry! How dare you?”

I think it worries me because today it might be someone’s birthday, but who knows what I’ll forget tomorrow? By the way, as of writing this, I have exactly 13 days' worth of clean underwear and today is Zendaya’s birthday.

8

cat love is just around the corner

9

Thirty, Dirty, and Surviving I’m turning 30 in a month, and all I can think about are all the things I haven't achieved yet. No home, no child… no darn dishwasher. It makes me angry that, despite feeling so accomplished this year in other ways, all the things that have held me back still occupy the forefront of my mind—a constant reminder of the various phases of my existence.

My naivety in my early 20s, believing I could walk out of art school with a six-figure salary. My frivolousness with men, thinking the perfect relationship was just around the corner, ready to sweep me off my feet. Or that friendship was unconditional and not transactional. How foolish was I? How simply foolish was it to trust the boy who told me he’d be my snot sleeve, only to leave me sobbing into my pillow for five months in solitude? And how crazy was I to think that I needed to be loved to feel whole? Oh, all this time I’ve wasted not loving myself through it all.

And yet here I am, having somehow gotten to this point in my life, alive and well; just mourning a past that has never loved me back. But I’m thankful for it. Not completely just yet, but I’ll come around. Because how much courage does it take to act a fool, knowing damn well that every tear I shed watered my soul into the resilient individual I am today?

I can only hope that the next 10 years are kinder and that I may be kinder still. That my bitterness towards a prosaic life will subside, and I’ll worry less about the world. I’ll love fully, I’ll love unconditionally. And it will still be the bravest thing I’ve ever done.

Hindsight is 30/30 It's official—I've hit 30, and there's no turning back. It’s astonishing to see how different my outlook on being 30 has become, now that I’ve crossed the proverbial hurdle. I went into this thinking I needed to be all these different things and overnight, that just seems to have vanished into thin air. My fears didn’t manifest and suddenly it’s almost like nothing has changed.

The night of my 20th birthday, I distinctly remember the thought that had crossed my mind: “I’m going to spend the next 10 years becoming the woman I would be proud of”.

Looking back, I realize how lofty my expectations were. Nothing went according to plan.

10 To think, I honestly could have just pulled the stick out of my ass and none of this would have mattered.

At midnight on my birthday this year, I was oddly flooded with a sense of relief. I bid farewell to my twenties. I didn’t have to lie to myself anymore and “pull myself up by my bootstraps”. I do worry that my 20-year-old self would be a smidge disappointed with the trajectory of my life, but the truth remains - she would be proud. It’s been a rollercoaster of a decade and G-d, this stick can finally come out.

...

What Do Men Talk About?

Do you talk of love and kisses?

A midnight embrace, and gentle sweet smells

of your person long lost?

Do you speak of the earth, its redwoods grand?

Of wind blowing

whispering secrets of a life well lived?

Do you share your soul with your kith & kin?

On days when nothing mattered

and life felt rare?

Do your tears fall freely,

soaking collars?

Do you hug each other in silence,

fingers indenting into skin?

11

Messages On The Pavement

12

Expatriate Moving to a new country in your 20s is one of the hardest things anyone can do. To willingly step away from comfort and conformity takes courage, and I did it all for love.

I moved to Europe in 2018 to be with my partner, and the first thing I knew I had to do was find a community. As if making friends as an adult wasn't hard enough, I found myself trying to be palatable or more agreeable with people in my community. Maybe this wasn’t a great first step, but you’re wide-eyed, and everything feels achievable when you’ve already done the difficult part of sustaining a long-distance relationship for 5 years.

That’s when I met Marie (name changed). She was a single mother, and despite a significant age gap, I wasn’t about to be picky about who I was spending time with. At first, she had the air of someone who was quite independent but loved to surround herself with people. I was quickly pulled into a slew of extravagant birthdays and dinner parties, and it was beginning to get overwhelming.

Between those moments of social gatherings, I noticed she was a pretty closed book personally. She didn’t like revealing too much about her past, but with patience, I came to know she’d previously been in an unhealthy relationship and had a son who didn’t live with her. Sure, finding this out strengthened our relationship, but it started to come with expectations I wasn’t ready to fulfill.

At that point in time, I would do anything for her. I cared for her daughter when she needed me, but finding financial security in a country where the language was a huge barrier proved to be a challenge in providing free childcare. I felt like I’d lost sight of my career goals, so I tried telling Marie that I couldn’t babysit anymore.

Soon followed tears and self-pity. “I’m all alone - I have no one,” she said, and it felt like a million daggers through my soul. I should know what that felt like. Sometimes guilt makes you see things for what they are, and I slowly began to feel Marie’s sensitivity weigh heavily on how I behaved around her. Suddenly the floor was covered in eggshells.

As a result of that, we spent some time apart. The invites to parties were declined, and the texts went unanswered - both ways.

Sometimes, we rush into communities and are so busy trying to be the best version of ourselves, and in doing that, it’s weird how we lose ourselves and our boundaries in the process. Then it all feels wasted. I often think about Marie, and then a familiar pang of guilt hits my lungs, but people come and go. I’ve learned to just let them go.

Horcruxes

13

My Parasite and I share a love for TV and film, and it's the cement that binds us together.

One night, as we often do, we were discussing Horcruxes and stumbled upon the question, 'If we had to hide fragments of our soul in 7 shows or movies that would inadvertently weaken us, what would they be?'

Naturally, it took us a whole two hours to delve into shows and movies that exude a certain 'soul-crushing' vibe. Crafting my list was a challenge, given my Libra Moon nature, but I believe I've finally decided on my 'Horcruxes.'

Black Mirror, Playtest (Series 3, Episode 2)

Black Mirror, as a whole, is terrifying. I spent the entire Christmas of 2017 bingewatching the first four seasons, and let me tell you, that's not a healthy thing to do.

Among all those episodes, Playtest stood out as oddly relatable, minus the... you know, dying and all. Yet, the mindfuckery in this episode is TOP TIER!

Fleabag (Series 2, Episode 6)

Being vulnerable is shit. It's the lowest of the low, unbecoming. That's why I can never watch this episode in its entirety again, or perhaps anything in which Andrew Scott plays a love interest. I've stealthily avoided 'All of Us Strangers' for this very reason.

Orange Is The New Black (Season 4, Episode 12)

I've watched this series almost five (?) times, but I always have to skip this episode because it's too difficult to watch. It's a tipping point in the show where it stops being just a black comedy and leans heavily into the reality of racial disparities in the prison system.

Hence, it makes the list.

Normal People (Episodes 9 & 10)

Two things I've voluntarily done, fully aware that this piece of work will destroy me, are reading the book and subsequently watching the show. Paul Mescal joins the frustrating, hopeless romantic, brooding, and simply daft male protagonist club, alongside Jeremy Allen White, Barry Keoghan, and Raymond Ablack (#iykyk). AND I AM TELLING YOU... I'M NOT GOING to hope for a sequel because it'll just disappoint me.

14 Boyhood

This movie is particularly bittersweet, and what makes it even better is that it was filmed over the span of 12 years. I don't think I've ever watched a Richard Linklater film and not liked it, yet Boyhood takes the cake. To me, it hasn't been so much about Mason's (played

by Ellar Coltrane) experience, but Patricia Arquette's role is the reason why this movie sticks with me the way it does.

La La Land

If you love being happy, I suggest you stop watching this movie with 10 minutes to spare.

That way, you're left with a story that doesn't shred your heart into a million little streams of blood, agony, and tears. So, you've been warned. Anyone who says this movie was tacky and boring can personally go suck a duck :)

One Day

As someone who gravitates toward depressing stories and tales of struggle and pain, I sincerely believe that there's a special place in hell for people who create characters that you fall in love with, only for them to die at the end. I'd say 'spoiler alert,' but the movie came out in 2011. I was 17."

Playlist of the Year

15

Let It Happen by Tame Impala

Kick Ce Soit by Jacques

Sur La Planche 2013 by La Femme

Rock Lobster by The B-52s

My Addiction by Alex Guesta

Candle Flame by Jungle

Oblivion by Grimes*

You Oughta Know by Alanis Morissette

Outta My Mind by Monsune

Show Me How by Men I Trust

Enne Solla Pogirai by A. R. Rahman, Vairamuthu*

Vennilave by A. R. Rahman, Hariharan, Sadhana Sargam

Cheri Cheri Lady by Modern Talking

Lovefool by The Cardigans

Soledad y El Mar by Natalia Lafourcade

My Love Mine All Mine by Mitski

Last Night Was the End of the World by Henry Burr

Scarlet Ribbons by Harry Belafonte (may he rest in peace)

Matty Groves by Doc Watson

* While I’m not a fan of these individuals’ personalities, I’ve learned to separate the art from the artist.

All For Love “As children, we’re pretty attuned to sussing out the black sheep of the family. With friend groups, it’s not as easy. It may be because, in a family, you rely on this hierarchical network of experiences. So those feelings are not just your own but probably your family’s too," Shraddha (name changed) recalled as she opened up to me about her relationship with her estranged grandfather.

Shraddha grew up in the care of her paternal grandparents while both her parents worked.

16 It was a traditional upbringing and nothing got in the way of an idealistic childhood. Yet sometimes she found that details were often left out on her mother’s side, and glaringly so, her mother’s father. She had turned 14 by the time she met her maternal grandfather for the first time and eventually shared a room with him.

“Through the years, I was able to gather that my grandfather had had an affair with my grandmother’s sister, and as a result, his family had cut ties with him. My grandmother remained the sole provider to my mother and her siblings, having picked up nursing," Shraddha said. "My mother was 7 when she found out, and I’m often lost in the thought of how chaotic it must’ve been for her at that age, considering that society was a little less progressive back then."

Shraddha’s memory of her grandfather was punctuated with moments of resentment but generally remained apathetic toward him. He was a widower when he moved in with her mother and the family had collectively come together to get him back on his feet after years of bad business. And despite his troublesome past, Shraddha took him to be rather generous and often kept to himself. “He was a progressive man. He liked pizza”, she added.

Her family arranged a joint custody deal, so her grandfather rotated his residence with all his children – and out of tradition, obligation, and pity his children cared for him until his passing. Her mother, however, developed a certain stoicism around the man, understandably so. “And how do you think your mom felt about her father being thrust back into her life?” I asked to which Shraddha replied, “When I was 9, my mother told me to never rely on anyone but myself. At the time, I didn’t make much of it but as I grew older, I noticed my mother seemed pretty detached from it all. I think she had her time to reflect and process her emotions, but it’s made her emotionally distant. As an adult, I understand why my mother thought it smart to relay that warning to a child. She was protecting me.”

Shraddha has always been the sensitive type but often will avoid showing it. It may be the lawyer in her, but it could also be her take on the world from her mother’s perspective.

“Hugging was a foreign concept with my family, but in the time I knew my grandfather, he would take my hand to kiss it and tell me how smart he thought I was,” Shraddha mentioned. “He never apologized to my grandmother, but I know he carried his guilt.”

When her grandfather died, the realization that he had only played a small role in Shraddha’s life became apparent as her family hadn’t invested much in his life. Simply put, he fell in love, and the consequences of that hurt people. While that was only a part of his wrongdoings, he still hurt people in the process. A blip though he may be, to Shraddha, a lasting lesson in loyalty and redeeming love.

17

Lucky Charms

My mother always likes to remind me that I refer to my father, fondly, as my “lucky charm.” I used to make him drive me to all my board exams, and every day during that exam season, I demanded he drive down the same road each day. After I finished each test, I’d find him patiently waiting for me outside the school. “How’d you do?” he’d ask, and I’d shrug. I scored 472/500 that year.

One time, I asked him to drive me to my entrance examination for the college I’d eventually attend. Instead of taking our car, he thought it best to have us take the bus instead. As fate would have it, we hit traffic along Gemini Flyover, causing the bus to inch along for the hour it would have taken to simply drive to the test. I was convinced that day that Appa’s magical powers were fading. After I began to cry, he shuffled me into an auto and paid double to get me to the exam venue just 15 minutes late. Three months later, I found out that I ranked no.1 in the foreign national category.

This belief has continued to this day, and while I can’t openly admit it to my mother, she knows that he’s ridiculously optimistic when it comes to me. My mother is resilient and she’s the brains of the family, so she’s important to me in other ways, but my father bears more heart.

Appa and I exchange a lot of non-verbalisms, often in thoughts, and conversations about what we call “personal ethics.” We’re honest to a fault and are worrywarts. We’ve had the worst fights, and I mean, I’ve said things to him that I regret. But what do you know when you’re 25? It must have sucked to let me go figure life out for myself, and maybe there were moments where he worried that he wasn’t there for me. When I think about it now, I wish I’d been more patient.

When I was 15, I overheard my dad cry to his older brothers, “What did he (my grandfather) ever do for me? He was never there for me!” After that day, all I could feel was so much anger for the rest of my father’s family, and what followed in the years after was the need to be my best self for him; I needed him to know that he didn’t have to worry about me.

Thinking now, maybe his pain wasn’t my burden to carry. My mother would have wanted me to not worry about it; not worry about Appa. She would have said that sadness and pain come and go like passing clouds. I think she would have said that in those moments, I was Appa’s lucky charm.

18

Corny Buildings

19

Girl Code What you're about to read is a heavily dramatized and monumentally downsized version of an hour-long story I heard from a friend of mine. While the general events of this exchange are true, it did not all happen over text. I'm not sure why I feel like I have to preface this, but probably because topics like this are very easy to misconstrue or take sides. I blame society, and I blame Ariana Grande.

Oh, and the names are changed to protect privacy.

20

Well, You Win Some & You Lose Some I hereby present the chronicles of my existence, a tale of triumphs embraced and adversities faced. Amen (?)

PROs

CONs

I got my driver’s license in January, at long last I bought a frame loom I joined a data analysis boot camp and I powered through it for 6 months.

I started running…for shits and giggles.

I reached a financial goal of mine, something I thought was impossible I saw Jungle in concert I saw my therapist consistentl My Parasite got married One friend gave birth to a beautiful baby girl and there are two friends expecting!!

I still hate driving, but I do it anyway I have not made a single tapestry and that’s okay The boot camp was horrible and I didn’t sleep for six months, but I sorta learned some cool stuff and made friends I started running…for shits and giggle I’ll probably still never be able to afford a house, but there’s still time for the economy to crumble I skipped on Hozier because of fucking Ticketmaster What do you know? I’ve been told I have OCD. (I’m fine..well, sorta)

21

Remember Me I grew up envious of large families and people who got to spend Christmas with their grandparents. There were a fair number of Christmases I spent with only my parents around, and occasionally my half-siblings. Each time, I’d receive the bulk of everyone’s attention span, so the holidays were often stressful because of that. I was never extremely close to my grandparents. Each one had their own set of health or mental issues. So in terms of my attachment to them, it was close to non-existent.

My grandmother suffered from Alzheimer’s, and as a child, I used to think it was called “all-timers.” My dad sat me down one day and told me that it meant she would forget everything. “When you have Alzheimer’s, you don’t have long-term memory,” I remember him saying. Truthfully, I don’t think I understood it at the time. I just got used to a very specific kind of interaction with her, and she’d always been the same.

There are pictures of me and my grandmother when I was much younger. I remember fleeting moments from when I was picked up from daycare, and I was so excited to go home and see grandma! She was the sweetest woman ever, and even when she was sick, she was still very kind.

Aside from my memory of her, I always wonder how hard it must have been for my father to have had to see a loved one’s memory gradually decay. When she died, I was more sympathetic to my dad’s emotions around her passing. We’d accepted it. That’s the thing about developing disabilities with the elderly – you sort of make your peace with it.

I’ve thought about Alzheimer’s many times and if my dad may be at risk. I don’t think I’m prepared to learn about this disease in case it were to affect someone I care deeply about.

I think I see it as an “out of sight, out of mind” thing, ironically. I think there’s a side of me that’s scared, and it’s the reason I like to live in the moment. I’m naturally very nonchalant, and I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing. All I know is that modern medicine exists, and I have to do everything I can to savor every waking moment.

22

Love is Cyclical

Skip This...

23

In middle school, I made up a fantasy novel and called it “Chandra.” It was celestialthemed, centered around a moon princess whom I groundbreakingly named... Chandra.

But that’s not the point. I'd come home from school every day and scribble chapters in a notebook, only to have it make rounds the next day among friends who were eagerly waiting to read. Alas, I never got to finish writing it.

“Chandra” isn’t the only book I’ve attempted to write. There’s “Intentions,” about a pair of twins, and it abruptly stops around Chapter 5. I wrote a couple of short stories, “Sunflower Child” and “Shlugs” that are both unfinished too. Here’s an excerpt from “Shlugs” for your pleasure,

Meet-cutes are for quirky girls. They’re for ravishing, orangehaired women with plaid skirts whose closets are most likely filled with an array of cardigans and a mahogany ukulele in a corner. But, I digress. Meet-cutes are for shlugs.

I wrote that in 2019. I was so bitter.

Anyway, what I’m beating around the bush to say is that I love writing, and I don’t want to give up on it anymore. I think I’m good at it. And I’m not saying this to you – the you that’s reading this. I’m saying this to the you that’s writing this. Don’t give up, okay?

“And, Scene.”

Hot diggity, you’ve made it to the end. What a fucking whirlwind!

This thing, this entity is currently the most consistent thing in my life. Well, aside from the fact that I have journals dating back to 2008. I can’t let you read them though. The statute of limitations on embarrassing doodles and pubescence has not yet expired. We’ll see in a couple of years, yes? If you’re willing to keep reading?

To the people who shared their stories with me – thank you. Truly, thank you. I’m not

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sure if I did them justice, but it takes a lot to own up to past mistakes and more to forgive others. Y’all have made this book less stuffy. I was told this year by someone new that they thought I was very easy to talk to, and suddenly I felt like they were seeing right through me – that they’d caught me in a lie. I’m learning to believe that I’m sorta mouthy, I guess (maybe just with people I’m comfortable with). Regardless, I’m glad I can provide that space.

I wanna thank my mom…..for being my biggest bully and best friend. At one point during the year, I thought I was going to lose my job so I called her, crying my fucking eyes out.

She said, “You’re gonna be fine” and hung up. Thankfully, I was fine. She’s since been hounding me to finish this and I appreciate her hard-headedness. She’s also going to make a fuss about the “Lucky Charms” bit so I have to give her something.

2023 is, now was, a hurricane. It was tough – not just for me, but for A LOT of people. I have so many reasons to continue being grateful, but the important thing is to continue caring. We have to care about the world and its people.

And so here’s where I leave you, hopefully, a little lighter.

May this year bring us love, health, and wealth taxes.