sol vigere ☀️

i guess not this morning because it’s 1am the next day but like he was alive yesterday. he was alive in the morning. i was awake when he died in the morning.

i found out six hours ago and i have been crying on and off ever since. my friend called me immediately after she found out—didn’t even process her feelings just immediately was like “i have to call sol”. we were on the phone four and half hours. i’ve tried to fill the silence. i don’t want to be alone. or sober. but alas.

like what the fuck do you do when your favorite professor dies?

i will miss him forever. i am so beyond devastated.

this is the most pain i think ive ever been in.

he was fucking 47. he has a wife and three kids. he drove a stupid little blue car he was way too fucking big for and he’s a fucking nerd. he’s the professor the upper classmen tell you to never take a class with because “he’s mean” or whatever but he gave me so much grace and patience and showed me so much kindness and i will never be able to tell him that he fucking saved my life this year. i will never see him again. i was supposed to have him again in the fall. i was supposed to see him in two months. i haven’t seen him in over a month. i will never see him again.

turns out when a guy kisses you for the first time and you almost tell him you don’t want to make out but you’re too busy freaking out about other things about kissing him for the first time that you forget before he kisses you open mouth and immediately you’re making out with someone for the first time since you were fifteen is not cool because. he. should’ve. asked.

not calling it anything. i don’t think i should. it doesn’t feel right.

but also when you’re kissing a guy and your jaw pops and you have a flashback and have to stop kissing him and don’t even remember what you said because you were having a flashback and you had to stop kissing him and he doesn’t stop he just starts kissing your neck instead. and you have to snap out of your flashback even though you can’t see anything and you can’t feel your limbs and you feel like you’re fourteen again and someone is kissing your fucking neck and you need him off so you say “i’m not here” and you don’t even remember when this was or what happened after that.

and also when you go over to his dorm at 7pm and he doesn’t start spending quality time with you until after midnight because he’s playing video games with his roommate and friend for the billionth time that week and you sat in a chair behind him for two hours on your phone and forgot you were a person until you remembered you could move and made and noise and he turned around and asked “are you ok?” and you looked like you had the soul sucked out of you and you just stared at him and before you said or did anything he looked back at FORTNITE of all things. and then he turned around and asked AGAIN “are you okay?” and you shrugged and took your hand and mouthed “sorry” and gave you his pity smile before dropping his hand and going back to his game. and then for a third time he turns around—this time he asks “are you mad at me?” and you just shrug again. and he asks “do you want me to get off?” and you shrug. and he goes back to his game. and looks at you again and you say finally “i don’t want you to have to get off of your game” which is ‘icantsaynoorstandupformyself’ for “please spend time with me” and he drops your fucking hand again and plays ONE MORE FUCKING ROUND OF FORTNITE!!!!! FORTNITE!!!!!! with his friends before his roommate goes to spend the night at his girlfriend’s apartment and his other friend goes to sleep and you don’t even remember how you got from the chair to his bed but you want to cry. you don’t want to talk you want to cry and you just hold him. and you keep holding him. he turns on the show you’ve been watching together while he WRITES HIS FUCKING PAPER HE PUT OFF THE ENTIRE NIGHT and you just hold him while he rights his paper and you watch the show. you say nothing. you don’t know what to say. you’re so upset you don’t know what to say. he asks “are you mad at me?” and you want to fucking cry. you just shake your head aggressively. he’s next to you now. you’re holding him now. you can’t be mad when he’s next to you and you’re holding him. you can’t look at his face. it’s a face you don’t love. you don’t love him. he loves you most when he’s on top of you or versa vice. that’s when his pupils are blown out and you’re overwhelmed by the amount he feels for you because you feel nothing. not just for him—in general. you feel nothing. you feel nothing.

and also when you’ve had insomnia you’re entire life but suddenly you’re going to bed after four am and then going to class in the morning because he doesn’t walk you home until 2:45 because you want to spend time with him and took a melatonin while you weren’t looking and was falling asleep while you were finally having an important conversation about your mental health he’ll never understand or try to even grasp the genuine seriousness of it and he stops you and says “i need to go to bed” and you understand because YOU DONT. FUCKING. SLEEP. but you want him to. and this night you think about kissing him again because that’s how you always get him to wake up a little and stay with you but you don’t want to kiss him. you don’t want to kiss him. you apologize and start getting your things and you’re still talking as you put your coat on and he says “off topic—“ and starts talking about his fucking fortnite skins or SOMETHING—you don’t care. you don’t even remember what you were talking about. it was over before you even processed you had finally told him something important. and he didn’t care.

and also he doesn’t know your birthday. you always say that you’re a month and nine days older than him and he doesn’t do the math and thinks your birthday in the spring is the 12th. it’s not. it’s the 18th. you look at him baffled and laugh. he says “i’m just not good with dates”. but you are. you’re insane with dates. you knew his birthday before you started dating him. you knew his birthday when you became friends. you told him happy birthday this year not long after midnight. because you’re a good friend. you’re a good boyfriend, even though you don’t even think you like him all that much.

and also you were in a manic episode when you started dating. and you’ve been in a depressive episode for a month and you weren’t even together for two. so for the entire relationship you were in a bad mental state and he didn’t care to even talk to you while you were in his dorm. “are you okay?” i look dead. i look soulless. i don’t look like me. i have lost weight. he didn’t notice. all he says now is “you look so good” “you’re so hot” “i really love your eyes” THATS ALL HE SAYS! “i’m not good with words” he says but all he does is talk. “i’m not good with words” he says but i am and he doesn’t know anything about my books or my music. he liked me for a year and i gave him a fucking shot just for me to break up with him a week before a month together. that phone call lasted one minute and twenty seven seconds and HE HUNG UP WITH ME. he texted me all day and i didn’t respond because 1, i didn’t wake up until after 2pm, and 2, because i knew i needed to break up with him and didn’t know what to do. and when he still texted me goodnight, he said ‘Sorry to ask this and obv you don’t have to answer but are you mad at me? I just feel like you have been ignoring me the past couple days and I wanted to see what that’s about.” A COUPLE DAYS???? it was twenty-four hours. and i snapped him back last night because i cannot have notifications on my phone when i go to sleep. and when he called me and i was in my friends dorm literally yelling about everything and realizing how invested i was in a relationship i didn’t even want to fucking be in when he chased ME. he wanted ME and he didn’t know what to do with me except tease and walk me home.

he’s the kindest person who has ever loved me. maybe the only person who has ever loved me.

i didn’t say in the first part, when we kissed for the first time, that i wanted to kiss him. i didn’t say that i liked seeing him flushed. i didn’t say that i wanted him to want me. i didn’t say i wanted him. i didn’t say i did what i did because i wanted to do it. and i definitely didn’t say that when i started to shake and cry from the trauma i’d hoped to avoid, he moved off of me and made sure i was okay. i didn’t say that he didn’t try to kiss me again. i didn’t say that he held me as i cried. he held me as i told him about the atrocities that have been done to me in the past by ex partners, old friends, peers, classmates. i told him all of this, and he held me anyway. and when i apologized for ruining it, he looked at me and told me i had nothing to be sorry for, that i didn’t ruin anything, that he really liked me.

i didn’t say that after my jaw popped and i had a flashback and he was kissing my neck when i told him i was gone that he got off of me faster than i thought someone could move and held me as i cried. he again let me tell him about where it came from, and when i apologized once more for ruining it, he told me “i don’t want to do anything you don’t want to do.” and i just cried. because he said it so simply, like it was the most obvious thing, and i cried because i realized that it was, and it should’ve always been obvious, but it never was until then, so i cried. i cried because i realized he actually loved me.

i didn’t say that he asked me about how i felt about him playing video games while i was there before i ever saw him play video games and that i told him it was okay and that id tell him if it wasn’t. i didn’t say that i didn’t tell him when it wasn’t. i didn’t say it had been such a long day for everyone and we were all tired and spacey. i didn’t say that i wanted to hold him. i didn’t say that i just wanted to be near him. i didn’t say i love his face. i love his face. i loved him and i was so far away from me that i didn’t know. i didn’t feel anything and i didn’t say how wasn’t his fault, because it wasn’t his fault.

i didn’t say that we were together in the fall, gotten closer at the end of summer, and that my birthday is in the spring. i didn’t say how fucking normal it is to forget a birthday. i didn’t say that i latch onto dates because i forget everything else, but i can at least guarantee that i remember the dates.

(after midnight on my birthday a month ago, he was the second person to text me happy birthday)

i didn’t say that when i finally started opening up about how i was doing, it was close to 3 am and we both had class in the morning. i didn’t say how he held my hands and promised me he cared but he was falling asleep on me and wanted to make sure he’d be awake when we talked about it.

i didn’t say that i chose to be awake, knowing being around people would make it even harder to fall asleep than it already is. i didn’t say that i wanted to stay up with him. i didn’t say that i wanted to see him as long as i could. i didn’t care what that did to my already impossible sleep schedule, i just wanted him.

i didn’t say that when i first started realizing i was falling for his awkward everything, his pretty eyes and smile and those fucking arms, i’d paced around my room for an hour because i didn’t know how to tell my friends who hated him, when his only crime was to be a guy they did not know that was beautiful to them. those same friends who convinced me to break up with him and laughed with me after i did, when my pupils were blown out to the edges of my irises and i’d never felt further from myself. when my friend left my dorm the night i ruined everything, nothing was funny anymore. i was so confused—i didn’t love him, i didn’t feel anything, so why did i just want him to hold me?

i didn’t say that i never tried to tell him about my books or my songs or anything that is apart of me because i wasn’t apart of me—i was missing. i wasn’t me. i wasn’t awake. nothing was real. it could be—every time i thought about my late professor, i’d disassociate until my limbs were heavy and i couldn’t feel real.

i didn’t say how even though i was losing my fucking mind, he made me feel like i was normal. he made me feel like i was worth everything. he made me feel like i deserved to be loved by him. he made me feel like i had it in me to be stable.

he never hurt me, only when i asked for it. he kissed me soft and rough and kind and good, he held me like he’d never get to again. i clung to him for dear life, prolonging all of our goodbyes just to leave without saying another word.

i thought he hurt me. i thought he was like the other men who have loved me, the idea of me, pretty and pleading, tears in my eyes with my lip caught between my teeth, the curve of my waist, the soft skin of my starving limbs. but no. he loved me like i wasn’t broken, like i was holy, like i was kind, and i never let him say it, and now we never will.

but i love him.

i couldn’t forgive me, but i needed to heal, so i tried to for him. i’m well medicated now, my psychosis episode has long since ended, i have been off of vyvanse two months now and i feel like a real person again for the first time in years. i haven’t been high in over a year, and i haven’t drank in almost eight months. i have healed and grown and grieved and felt the weight of the loneliest depressive episode entirely sober. but this time around, i had friends who stuck by me through every stage of my recovery, ones who still listen when i need, ones who aren’t going anywhere.

turns out when a guy kisses you for the first time and you almost tell him you don’t want to make out but you’re too busy freaking out about other things about kissing him for the first time that you forget before he kisses you open mouth and immediately you’re making out with someone for the first time since you were fifteen is not cool because. he. should’ve. asked.

not calling it anything. i don’t think i should. it doesn’t feel right.

but also when you’re kissing a guy and your jaw pops and you have a flashback and have to stop kissing him and don’t even remember what you said because you were having a flashback and you had to stop kissing him and he doesn’t stop he just starts kissing your neck instead. and you have to snap out of your flashback even though you can’t see anything and you can’t feel your limbs and you feel like you’re fourteen again and someone is kissing your fucking neck and you need him off so you say “i’m not here” and you don’t even remember when this was or what happened after that.

and also when you go over to his dorm at 7pm and he doesn’t start spending quality time with you until after midnight because he’s playing video games with his roommate and friend for the billionth time that week and you sat in a chair behind him for two hours on your phone and forgot you were a person until you remembered you could move and made and noise and he turned around and asked “are you ok?” and you looked like you had the soul sucked out of you and you just stared at him and before you said or did anything he looked back at FORTNITE of all things. and then he turned around and asked AGAIN “are you okay?” and you shrugged and took your hand and mouthed “sorry” and gave you his pity smile before dropping his hand and going back to his game. and then for a third time he turns around—this time he asks “are you mad at me?” and you just shrug again. and he asks “do you want me to get off?” and you shrug. and he goes back to his game. and looks at you again and you say finally “i don’t want you to have to get off of your game” which is ‘icantsaynoorstandupformyself’ for “please spend time with me” and he drops your fucking hand again and plays ONE MORE FUCKING ROUND OF FORTNITE!!!!! FORTNITE!!!!!! with his friends before his roommate goes to spend the night at his girlfriend’s apartment and his other friend goes to sleep and you don’t even remember how you got from the chair to his bed but you want to cry. you don’t want to talk you want to cry and you just hold him. and you keep holding him. he turns on the show you’ve been watching together while he WRITES HIS FUCKING PAPER HE PUT OFF THE ENTIRE NIGHT and you just hold him while he rights his paper and you watch the show. you say nothing. you don’t know what to say. you’re so upset you don’t know what to say. he asks “are you mad at me?” and you want to fucking cry. you just shake your head aggressively. he’s next to you now. you’re holding him now. you can’t be mad when he’s next to you and you’re holding him. you can’t look at his face. it’s a face you don’t love. you don’t love him. he loves you most when he’s on top of you or versa vice. that’s when his pupils are blown out and you’re overwhelmed by the amount he feels for you because you feel nothing. not just for him—in general. you feel nothing. you feel nothing.

and also when you’ve had insomnia you’re entire life but suddenly you’re going to bed after four am and then going to class in the morning because he doesn’t walk you home until 2:45 because you want to spend time with him and took a melatonin while you weren’t looking and was falling asleep while you were finally having an important conversation about your mental health he’ll never understand or try to even grasp the genuine seriousness of it and he stops you and says “i need to go to bed” and you understand because YOU DONT. FUCKING. SLEEP. but you want him to. and this night you think about kissing him again because that’s how you always get him to wake up a little and stay with you but you don’t want to kiss him. you don’t want to kiss him. you apologize and start getting your things and you’re still talking as you put your coat on and he says “off topic—“ and starts talking about his fucking fortnite skins or SOMETHING—you don’t care. you don’t even remember what you were talking about. it was over before you even processed you had finally told him something important. and he didn’t care.

and also he doesn’t know your birthday. you always say that you’re a month and nine days older than him and he doesn’t do the math and thinks your birthday in the spring is the 12th. it’s not. it’s the 18th. you look at him baffled and laugh. he says “i’m just not good with dates”. but you are. you’re insane with dates. you knew his birthday before you started dating him. you knew his birthday when you became friends. you told him happy birthday this year not long after midnight. because you’re a good friend. you’re a good boyfriend, even though you don’t even think you like him all that much.

and also you were in a manic episode when you started dating. and you’ve been in a depressive episode for a month and you weren’t even together for two. so for the entire relationship you were in a bad mental state and he didn’t care to even talk to you while you were in his dorm. “are you okay?” i look dead. i look soulless. i don’t look like me. i have lost weight. he didn’t notice. all he says now is “you look so good” “you’re so hot” “i really love your eyes” THATS ALL HE SAYS! “i’m not good with words” he says but all he does is talk. “i’m not good with words” he says but i am and he doesn’t know anything about my books or my music. he liked me for a year and i gave him a fucking shot just for me to break up with him a week before a month together. that phone call lasted one minute and twenty seven seconds and HE HUNG UP WITH ME. he texted me all day and i didn’t respond because 1, i didn’t wake up until after 2pm, and 2, because i knew i needed to break up with him and didn’t know what to do. and when he still texted me goodnight, he said ‘Sorry to ask this and obv you don’t have to answer but are you mad at me? I just feel like you have been ignoring me the past couple days and I wanted to see what that’s about.” A COUPLE DAYS???? it was twenty-four hours. and i snapped him back last night because i cannot have notifications on my phone when i go to sleep. and when he called me and i was in my friends dorm literally yelling about everything and realizing how invested i was in a relationship i didn’t even want to fucking be in when he chased ME. he wanted ME and he didn’t know what to do with me except tease and walk me home.

☽ Sometimes “writer’s block” is actually just your story being broken and your brain knowing before you do. Respect the vibes, go back. Something stinks.

☽ If you’re stuck in the middle, skip to the part you’re excited to write. Chronological writing is a suggestion, not a law.

☽ “Kill your darlings” is not about deleting every cool thing you love. It’s about not hoarding scenes like a dragon with dialogue you wrote in 2017 that doesn’t even make sense anymore.

☽ You do not need to write like your favorite author. You need to write like you, caffeinated and slightly unstable.

☽ Talking to yourself in the mirror as your character is not weird. It’s called method writing. You’re not unhinged, you’re dedicated.

☽ Aesthetic Pinterest boards and playlists are writing progress if they make you feel like a god again.

☽ You can write the climax before you finish Act 1. You can rewrite Chapter 1 thirty times and then delete it anyway. You’re not behind, you’re in hell with the rest of us.

You’re allowed to write stuff that’s not “marketable.” You’re allowed to be weird. Write the story that would make you feel seen. The niche finds its freaks.