putting on the same clothes as yesterday
August 2nd.
I’m back home. I didn’t do much this week, so it went by really slowly. I’ve been listening to True Anon, and I’ve been going on walks/runs, and I went to Berkeley with my mom. We were meant to end up in Alameda, because Renata forgot something, but my mother also knew that I wanted to go to Moe’s Books. I’ve also been to San Francisco, and saw Joshua, which I will get into.
Part of me wondered if he expected to have sex with me, guaranteed. Honestly, fair, because that’s what I expected to happen. He was unpacking his new place. This was the first apartment he’d ever moved into, because he had spent the last four years commuting to school from home. I knew that he graduated because I saw it on his instagram. His degree is in history. When I got excited and asked him to tell me about his work, he didn’t seem to know much about what I was talking about. That was a bummer - mid-conversation, he was disappointing me, and I began to wonder what Nico was doing at that moment.
Joshua counted on his finders, recalling all of the essays he had written in his dual degree of Ethnic Studies and History. I wish I could have felt impressed. He was super antsy setting up his bedding, and his TV stand faced the wall, so that he could not access its drawers. Nothing was in its place yet.
He was particularly frazzled to see me. He was way too fucking excited. We had sex, I have to address what happened.
In the heat of everything, he insisted on taking the condom off. I was like, no, keep it on. I’m considering the headache required to get an STI test in Marin, how much harder it is to get an appointment here than it was at my University’s hospital, and this part is cruel, but I was also thinking about seeing Matthew very soon, and I felt like that would have been disrespectful. Also, AIDS, chlamydia, HPV, whatever whatever, you get it. Everything is telling me to keep the condom on, yet he is whining, trying to be sexy about it, like please, please, please, for old times sake, it would feel so good - that immediately took me out of it. I was fourteen on a couch, bleeding from having sex for the first time, getting a call from my mother that she was outside and ready to pick me up.
I’ve been thinking about how attractive I am. There have been more weirdos lately. People say things on the street, kind things, crude things, and ask me to pay attention to them. I’m grateful that I can feel confident in myself, and feel confirmation from others that I am pretty. Yet I can’t help but feel that this is also quite limiting, because of how many scary situations I have been put in, where sex is a threat instead of a choice, or a prize. I never felt like fucking meat in Michigan. But I live in Spain, in California.
It was on the drive home that I remembered everything that happened. We were smoking and drinking, and I felt comfortable doing that, because this was the man I lost my virginity to, the boy that I dated for a period of time when I was so young. When I first arrived at his apartment, he received me downstairs, and walked a little too quickly up to the second floor. He asked me to play music on his speaker. It was one of the only things on his counter, along with some scattered cups and dishes that he was still putting away. They had all come from boxes, some from his roommate's old place, some from his childhood home. I didn’t recognize any of it. He said something like, this is your role, you know better music than I do. He offered me a glass of wine, but then walked away, so I poured it myself, into one of the plastic cups.
After an hour, when I came back to refill my glass, I could hear rap music coming out of the speaker. I had added some to the playlist, because I knew we both liked Nas and Outkast, but this was something else. When I sat on his bed again he began to serenade me. I wanted to vomit. I have a terrible pet peeve of people singing to me, especially if they are bad at it, and at this point I was realizing that I also did not like to be rapped at by a white guy. It was so weird - anyways, I’m asking him to stop, approaching it kind of as a joke at first. Then, when he would not stop, I repeated myself. I make an empty threat. “I’m going to leave. I’m going to leave if you don’t stop.” I’m way too high, and we had almost finished the bottle he bought, I wasn’t going anywhere. But he was bothering the shit out of me and I needed him to stop. I finally get up as an act of defiance, and he grabs my forearm with his whole weight and sits me back down.
He was trying to reassure me, but his eyes were fucking crazy. They were darting between mine to try and convince me that he was sweet, and that he was only joking, and that he wanted me to stay. He was practically gritting his teeth, and his grip on me was incredibly strong. This happened before we had sex. I wish I hadn’t assumed I could be so comfortable at his house, I wish I hadn’t let curiosity lead me there in the first place, I wish I had just stayed home.
I deleted our messages. I don’t know what kind of lesson I wanted to teach myself by seeing him again. It taught me nothing. I have no more clarity about what kind of relationship I want with Matthew, not any more than I did before I had seen Joshua. Maybe hanging out with him just taught me that I need to get out of town soon.
Anna and Ruth will be visiting me for a week, and then Ruth and I will go to New Jersey and New York. I have made plans with Matthew to see him. It will be the first time we’ve seen each other since December, when we broke up.
DRAWING
August 13th NOTES
August Budgeting
205 from father
600 from mother
805 total
90.70 in bank account
714.30 total spent from August 1-August 12
20 in DEBT to Ruby
38.60 in DEBT to Ruth
90.70 i have access to
58.60 in DEBT TOTAL
32.1 I am sitting at airport currently owning
of my 714 spent, my trip relevant purchases were:
200 food
96 groceries
54 gas
53 shopping
54 misc
457 total
714-457= 257
257 non trip related expenses
Thomas Jefferson noted Cuba as an ideal island to be the property of the United states. if they couldn’t have it, and they couldn’t make it work, leaving it discarded because of better interests elsewhere became the reality
Cuba's struggle is not unique. it is unlike other latin american countries but it is representative of a wave of failing economies which are stagnant in reform but consistent in instability
August 13
I haven’t written in my diary about Matthew yet. I will see him tomorrow.
August 14th.
Everything has brought me to this moment. I’m on the train from Summit to Penn Station to see Matthew. I haven’t written about this plan yet, but I’m letting you know now that I hope I leave this meeting happy. I don’t know what I’m looking for, but I also do. He’ll have to make some decisions and so will I. Maybe we won’t make any of them together, or maybe we will.
I’m talking like Nancy Pelosi.
I hope I don't leave crying. That’s all I have to say.
I’m ready for a relationship. Let’s see if it's with him.
I think I’ll catch you up on my way to Point Pleasant.
Honestly, I’ll keep writing. Summer is coming to an end and I still have plenty of pages. I would like to reach the very last one, so I will proceed.
Ruth says that she is strict to the calendar and insists that Summer only ends on the Fall equinox, September 21st. I am enforcing this belief of hers now, because I don’t have school to mark my time anymore.
I’m approaching Manhattan. Nico says he got a return offer from his summer internship and is moving here. I wonder if I will end up here, or if I will not. I don’t have a clear picture, but I’m working towards one.
It's nostalgic to be back in Jersey. When I visit Ruth, it is like visiting family. Ever since my aunt and uncle moved to Jersey City around 2016, I have come here almost every summer, and ever since I met Ruth in 2020, I have stayed with her each time. Sometimes, I don’t even see my blood relatives, and I spend the whole week with hers.
When Matthew texted me a few weeks ago, he said that he would go anywhere for me, except Jersey. That was not something I liked to hear. I wanted to imagine him on the beach with Ruth and I, at her house in Mantoloking, but he does not seem interested in such an event.
It is my mission to keep Ruth. She makes my life more wonderful. I will always love New Jersey, because I love her. I don’t think Matthew intended for me to take such a comment so personally, but as I am getting closer to seeing him, I am only thinking of the words he has said that have left me feeling sore. If today doesn’t do well, if the future of my love life remains uncertain, I will always have my friends and family, and I will always have Ruth.
I am now waiting at Penn Station after having been at Matthew’s house. I’m honestly in shock. He had nothing to say to me, and we hardly talked about anything other than January until now. There were some points where we addressed things about our relationship, but we mainly discussed career, school, personal life, and junk.
I wonder if I prefer him, or if I prefer someone with more to say. I’m really glad it went well, but at the same time, did it? Maybe I’m just pumped off hormones from having sex with him. I started to kiss him in his kitchen, after I had met his father. I didn’t actually go to Brooklyn prepared to sleep with him, but then we were making out, and I wanted to see his room. I had to be quiet, because his father was in his office on the second floor. I don’t even think we took off all of our clothes - the sex was desperate, in the best way. It was almost better that we hadn’t talked about ourselves, because while we were looking into each other's eyes, I could tell we both wanted to say something. It made me come so hard.
We sat on a bench in his backyard before I left. I told him I wanted to talk about it. He said he didn’t, but that if we see each other again, then he might want to then. I should come prepared with a list of things to say, or maybe I should leave and never come back. I want my feelings head, and I deserve that much, but I think that his head might be elsewhere… I want to have sex with him again. Our bodies fit so perfectly, but we had almost no verbal resolution. I wonder if all we were meant for was fucking.
When I see him again (if) I’m going to say this (or something along the lines of):
I’m redacting this part. You don’t need to know what I planned on saying to him. If you remember, then you do, but I will not remind you. That would be plain embarrassing!
I am back in New Jersey now, with a clearer head. The hard thing to admit to myself is that I don't see a future with him. The emotions are there, but they might just have to stay that way. I know I am prone to hedonism, and that maybe all this is or can be is just enjoyment, sexually, physically. That is bleak, and I wish it weren't true, but it's hard to guide my mind away from the feeling when I try to recall the things he’s said and they are quite empty. Does he want me back? Why am I here?
What is the saying - Lovers always feel like they are inventing something. I don’t know if I’m in love with him, or just chasing a high. It feels like we are inventing sex when we fuck, like we were always supposed to be inside one another, like I need him to come on my stomach. As I write that down I know that is reductive. What we have feels so good and I don’t want it to stop. I want my cake and I want to eat it too.
I am now going to air my grievances about him. He was unprepared to pick me up. On my way to Brooklyn, I said I would be there at 12, and when I texted him that I had arrived at the Clark station at 11:55, he said he hadn’t left home yet. Over the phone, he told me he was anticipating that I would be late by half an hour, and so he hadn’t showered yet. How am I going to waste my time on vacation! Of course I would arrive on time. Whatever. He didn’t plan lunch either, which felt a bit unserious. He told me to meet him at a cafe, and when I arrived, he was sitting down and had already ordered a drink. I had to get my own. It all felt quite precarious - the walk to another location, overlooking the bridge, wondering if I’d see his home or his old school, or if it would end in an hour, and I’d come back to Jersey knowing nothing. I’m not excited to tell my friends, because it’ll be a whole bunch of I told you so. They deserve it, it seems. They were right, for the most part.
Listening to Ruby’s voice memo and she is telling me that the fact I confronted him made me see who he was with more clarity. Especially this far removed from the original breakup. It’s not his fault, or maybe it is.
Active or passive. I am active. Matthew is passive. Maybe that doesn’t encapsulate it all.
TEXT MESSAGE SENT TO Vincent:
Okay so the first day that I saw him I was so nervous. I'm thinking in my head like this is going to be so emotional I'm going to get upset and I'm going to be like we need to get back together. But then I go to him and he's really quiet and his head is everywhere. I texted him I was there at 12 and he was like omg sorry I thought you’d be in Manhattan at 12! I didn't expect you so soon, On my way! to the coffee shop. I'm like wtf is he stupid, because I asked him to pick me up at the station in Brooklyn, I thought I had made that clear.
Off the bat, I am annoyed. I’m so mad. I always put the relationship first. I am so thoughtful, I have come all the way to his hometown to see him and he can’t even read my text and think he is at the right train station at the right time. Either way, the cafe he suggested we meet at is a fifteen minute walk, so I have time to mull this over and he has time to arrive before me. When I see him, he is sitting down with his coffee already purchased. I’m like, HE DIDN’T WAIT FOR ME, but also I am so nervous so I buy myself an iced tea and say let’s go on a walk. I can’t sit down. I’m so antsy and it's nice out. He tells me that we will be walking to an overlook of the Brooklyn Bridge. He says something about how the path was once a highway. We talk about my travels, and his time abroad. It’s all pretty light, just some catch up.
I start letting it fall silent a few times, and he just takes them. Normally, I knew Matthew to take long pauses, then say something like, sooooo about us… But nothing like that happened. Until we drove to Red Hook (he just got his license and wanted to show me his neighborhood) and we were sitting down eating, and I just said it: should we address the past? And he's like, nope. I feel like we should at some point, and he’s like, okay. Then I'm like you don't have anything to say at all? No. You didn’t come prepared with anything? No. Well, me neither. He goes, do you have something to say? My mind goes blank. I’m thinking to myself, I’m honestly in a good mood and I’m not really ready to harsh the vibe. It’s not the right moment. So I tell him again that I don’t have anything to say.
So, we’re in the car driving back to Brooklyn Heights. I say it again, we should talk. Do you want to see me again while I’m here? He says yes. So I told you I’m available Saturday and he’s like okay I want you to come over Saturday. Then I’m talking about other things, the song he’s playing and how he once said If I Ever Feel Better by Phoenix sounded like church rap and he said he still thought so. Then we’re passing by his high school. It’s smaller than I expected. I guess everything's quiet compact in New York. The topic changes and then we decide to go back to his house because he was about to go to work. It’s like 3pm and he’s like you’re going to meet my dad and I’m like is that okay with you? Yes, if it is with you.
Then I am shaking his dads hands. He had just taken the trash out. He was a much shorter man than Matthew, but he had the same nervous inflection in his voice. I found him quite wonderful. It goes well. We enjoy a good greeting and conversation, and then he goes upstairs.
Matthew lived in a four story brownstone. It was decorated well; the first floor had a simple layout that led to a stony and quaint backyard with a shed. There was an office on the second floor, and a living room full of books and records. The fourth floor was his room, and his brother’s old room, which was now his mother’s office. We went outside after the conversation with his father. I think we need to talk about the relationship, Matthew. He’s reluctant AF. I haven’t done anything but hug him hello at this point, and so I’m like I’m going to sit closer to you. I lean on him. Okay… We have a couch you can stay on. Matthew, you know that’s not going to happen. Okay, so you’re sleeping over and we’re going out. I have a feeling that’s going to mess things around a little bit. I’m like yes, I think so too. Well, that kind of opens things up - like, we’re going to act like we’re dating, right? Yes, correct. He’s still cagey, and I can tell he’s nervous. I tell him I have to get going.
I’m willing to come back,m because I have a feeling he is going to tell me something I don’t already know. I am curious. At 3: 30 I have to go. Oh, Okay. Then I kiss him, and he pushes me away. He looks at me, and says okay. He lingers, and then he kisses me again. So, we’re going to have a conversation this Saturday. Okay. My parents will be gone, he says. We keep kissing. There’s a lot of back and forth. Can I show you my room? I honestly didn’t expect to have sex with him, but who was I to say no.
The sex that we have is the most intimate thing we can achieve. I look into his eyes and he looks back at mine intensely. When we both finish he tells me he’s worried, I say don’t be. I am not thinking about anything other than his naked body, what it feels like to be in his childhood bedroom, the basketball trophies he had and the sheets that he had to clean.
We go downstairs. Okay, I work on Saturday. Well, I don’t want to be waiting around for you. That feels like the wrong thing to do as a woman. He’s like I will probably get off early but I have to let you know while I’m at work. That is annoying, I will make other plans, but if you become available I can be here at four. He says he might need to take a nap, and because I am secretly livid, I make a joke.
There have been two occasions in the past, in the four months that we dated, where he was late to a plan because he was asleep in a nap, and forgot to set an alarm. I’m like, if you do that to me while I’m on vacation, I will fucking kill you. I won’t. Then, I say goodbye to him and to his dad, and I head to the Jersey shore.
I’m feeling a little confused, a little mad, and honestly, I am feeling a little bit upset. This man called me just a month ago and said he thought about us getting back together. So I go to my friends on the shore, and I tell them he doesn't really have anything to say but that I need to prepare what I’d say to him. They were sighing, yawning. I care about him. I still feel the chemistry between us, and the love between us, but maybe that is not enough. I am ranting now: I want a lot out of my life, and I loved him, but I have to move on.
The following night, I’m in Manhattan. I try to see him, but it fails, because he’s not catching my drift that I want to stay the night. Friday evening, he asks me what I’m doing. I made plans with Ruth and Robert, but he tells me I’m welcome to stay over after. You’ll have to wait until Saturday, I say. He tells me that he won’t take a nap on Saturday. I have work to do, don’t worry, I will be expecting you. Then I told him about this party I was invited to in Dumbo at five, that I would come after that. I rolled in around 7:00 a little buzzed. We go to the grocery store. There is a hole under the left pocket of my jean shorts, and I’m wearing my boots, I ask a worker something in Spanish. I’m more forward, because I had already been drinking at the party. I start making dinner, and he makes a joke, insinuating he still has feelings for me. I thought you weren’t interested in talking about the past? With a Blue Moon in front of him, he goes, I think I am ready now.
I forgot to mention, that first day, when we were in his backyard, I had admitted to him that the end of our relationship was miserable. The last three weeks were very hard for me. Were they hard on you? Yes, he says. I tell him, I almost broke up with you earlier because I was so miserable. But I stayed, I said, because I wanted to take every moment of you that I could. And then he’s telling me, when he was in London, the novelty wore off within the first few two months. He told me he’d begin to miss me when he would travel alone, because he would always think about how he wanted to enjoy everything with another person. I wondered for a moment if I was that special person he wanted to share his life with. He looked so beautiful waiting for me to finish dinner, pensively looking at his computer, and looking at me so sadly. I wanted to believe it was me. I wanted him to say it, and he got close a few times, but never could he say it directly. All I wanted to hear was: I wanted that person to be you.
So we are discussing this in more detail as I am cooking the marinated steak. I tell him that the program I’m applying to in London is quite interesting, and he tells me, if you’re in a different country, we can’t do long distance. I know that. I wouldn’t really want to, also I don’t think we should have done it while you were in London originally. This gives him pause. I wouldn’t really want that for either of us, I say, but it always feels necessary for me to say this, I've never felt this way about anyone. He tells me that he asked his mom about us. You hear how old people talk about their twenties, he says, and this is what it is like. Life moves on, and you meet other people. You fall in love with someone and it doesn’t work out, and it's sad, and you will always remember them. I tell him he’s right; I just can’t picture doing it again with someone else, but that was something I was going to have to do.
Then we joked about getting back together. I told him that I’ve had exes tell me that they loved me in the past, but that they haven’t really meant it. I wanted to know if he meant it. He told me he pictured having children with me. I did too. At the end of the day, I say, you’re a year younger than me - he says that shouldn’t matter, because his parents were six years apart. But you haven’t finished college yet, and you don’t know what you’re going to want when it ends. I talk about my own experience, but he says that is different, you actually liked it, and I say, you’ll like it too.
It isn’t going to work.
August 18th
Wow. Okay. lots of new developments. Matthew and I spent the night together in Brooklyn and it was wonderful. Each time I looked into his eyes it was overwhelming. I love him, and that feeling is strong, but I’m wondering if it can be sustained under the conditions we are in.
The morning after our conversation, he admitted to being in love with me. He told me he was sad. I am in a good mood recalling it, because I’d like that to be hopeful, like, he can’t imagine his life without me, and he would like to keep me. I’m not sure if that is quite the conclusion.
I stayed another night. I wore a really short denim skirt, and a tank top. We got really expensive drinks at a brother bar and he told me he dreamed about his kids being bilingual. This was kind of prompted by me: I noticed that the table next to us was speaking in Spanish, but they spoke it with a slur, or a drawl, like I do. I told him the odds were high that they were first generation Americans, or they were travelers. Either way, he said he cojnsidered biliguklaity. I asked him what language he had considered in the past. He is a little hesitant before he saus, Spanish. I turn that over in my mind a little while as I tell him more about the project I’d like to pursue at London School of Economics.
The rest of the night was great. This was the first time I had been out with him since he turned twenty one.
This morning we talked about having kids. I told him it crossed my mind. I remember grappling with it when we were together, thinking about how every time I spoke aloud that I didn’t want children, my brain knew that I was lying. Whether its because I’m programmed to or because I grew up around babies, I think it is something that I want eventually. We’ll see if I live long enough, or if I find the opportunity to.
He said that every time that he talked to his mom about me, that she would take my side. LOL. I love that.
I might see him again, I might not. I keep preparing myself for a cancellation, or for him to say that he regrets seeing me. I leave room for him to say that he doesn’t want to see me. It is purely a safeguard, because I would really like to see him, and I don’t want to be disappointed if the plans change. I feel so raw, like anything could affect me right now. I just keep putting myself in this position so freely.
I think he’s having a hard time wrapping his head around what he wants. I think I’m just more certain because I have nothing to lose, even though I do. I don’t know. Am I more certain?
August 20th
I’m climbing altitude on my way home from Newark. I’ve realized that I’ve developed a bit of flight anxiety because of the Boeing news. I remember telling Claudia right before our flight to Berlin in March about another whistleblower dying suddenly, before they could testify against Boeing in court. I thought she’d find that amusing, because of her fascination with planes. She checks flight patterns and is interested in engineering. But then when we were taking off from O’Hare, I noticed how quiet she was, and how she gripped at the arm rests as she watched the seat monitor. She had chosen the tab for flight information. The plane had cameras fixed to the top and the bottom, so she could watch us in the air, like that would protect us along the way. It was probably an oversight to mention anything about the increase in plane crashes and malfunctions in the last decade. She was all but shaking. Luckily, we were flying an Airbus. She checked before we got on.
Anyways, when the plane first leaves the tarmac and also when it hits ground, I can’t help but briefly envision a freak accident. I’ve been traveling by air so often lately. I’m still alive, though.
So I saw Matthew a third time. I spent the night again, and then he drove me to Morristown. When he texted me a week before I was on the East Coast, he had made that joke about going anywhere to see me, except New Jersey. But then he offered to take me to the Hoboken station, which turned into an hour-long car ride all the way from Brooklyn to Ruth’s house. That gave me a good impression. He redeemed himself.
I’m happy about how my travels have gone. I have found an answer everywhere I’ve been. I started my official journey on Latin American politics in Argentina, which carried into Spain, where I researched environmental policy and their Civil War. Through the book I read for my internship, A Long Petal of the Sea, I thought about immigration to Venezuela; then I learned that we are the first country to lose all our ice caps due to global warming (I’m writing down “we” as if I am the country. This reminds me of when I met a lawyer in Coin, Malaga, who upon introducing herself, declared, “soy Argentina,” which translates to, “I am Argentina.” It’s grammatically correct, or I guess semantically, but it impacted me. It sounded so proud.) All the research I did about Cuba throughout this time also carried onto my travels on the island after my internship. That all informed my decision to apply to LSE, and maybe in the future to another history program. It taught me that I need to pursue journalism and look into academia as my career path. I am drawn to it, I cannot avoid it, it follows me everywhere.
Then, I shared the Bay Area with Ruth and Anna. From San Rafael to Mountain View, to even Santa Cruz (NorCal, not the Bay Area, I would never fuck up that distinction) they got to see a local side of California. Ruby is considering moving here as an option. I wanted to give her a specific view of what that life could look like, but in showing her all of that, I also saw that it wasn’t really a life I personally wanted for myself in my twenties. I’m not sure I’ve necessarily outgrown the Bay, because I see a future with it, with advocacy to improve the lives of my sister’s kids, maybe my own. I want to make sure that the place I love can continue to offer its beauty. But for my career and my relationships, I don’t think I’ll find myself here.
This brings me to remention Spain. I thought it was what I wanted. I left so quickly once college ended, and that was partly because I was ready to start a new life, to graduate and to start my next chapter immediately, before I could miss my old life, friends, language, Country. I needed to be different as soon as possible. I needed to lean into the identity I felt I didn’t have access to through the United States. My American side felt like it was about to reject me, through its politics and its harshities in wages, in rent hikes, in an unreliable job market. I wanted to beat it before it got me, and live somewhere secure. I thought Spain was exactly that. It cared about its citizens, or at least I perceived it to. It recognized Palestine as a state while my nation relentlessly bombed Gaza and delegitimized Israel's crimes against humanity.
I was given a warm welcome by Spain, but I wanted it to woo me into giving up the comfort of my life in California. I wanted to love it so much that I felt comfortable driving a wedge between me and my family and friends in the United States, one which added half a day and an ocean.
In Madrid, I had Gerri. He brought me into his life and showed me what my own could look like. I could be a graduate student at ECAM, and gain industry knowledge, and then network with his friends and resources and find work. This life promised me an art scene dependent on digital media companies and streaming services, in order to support productions in English or Spanish. It seemed pretty ideal, and we went out all the time, and I had so much fun. But then I would take the train back to Zaragoza, and I would apply to jobs, and I would read the news, then write cover letters, then watch the news, then finish my graduate school applications, then watch political films, then attend interviews for positions in the United States, then go to work and tell my boss about the Supreme court, then hear back from jobs and schools, then cry to my mom and to Ruth about how scared I am for the planet and for my home country.
I couldn’t stay there. Not yet, anyways. I also couldn’t go home, at least not to my old life in Marin making coffee and going on walks, even if it was in the meantime. I needed a change right away.
Then I was in New Jersey, and it felt like I was visiting in-laws. Then I was going out with my college friends in a new setting, and integrating them into the parts of Manhattan that I knew and had access to through Robert, through his parents, my uncle and my aunt. Then I was talking about having kids with Matthew, and I was seriously considering a long term relationship. I saw what I wanted clearly. Then, the image started to decay.
My lungs have been hurting more lately. Now, when I borrow someone’s vape when I’m drinking, I can feel a thin film around them, and I breathe funny. I see how much older I look in the mirror as I did a year ago, and even older than how I looked when I was living at home, taking a semester off and uncertain about what the fuck was about to happen to me. I feel my body changing the more exercise I do, and the more protein I eat now that I’m not a vegetarian. I feel my back sore, and wonder when I will be in pain because I am no longer flexible and agile, or beautiful and young.
Everything feels like it has happened the way it was meant to, and I am proud of who I’ve become, and who and what I know. I want to keep living this way, and I will. I must.
This is when my pen ran out of ink. I was still on the flight to SFO from Newark. I sat with the rest of my thoughts and I read Cuba: An American History. I started watching the Lumumba: Death of a Prophet documentary. I got home in time to have dinner, finish the film, and then go to bed.