words enthusiast

it's a family name. only one of us had it, for about a month. it is so inextricably tied to love and loss. i am love. but i am also grief. i am knowing that it will never be the same. i am change. i am hope. i am a reminder and a reflection of what came before. i am, truly, named after someone i have never met and have no way of knowing. i wonder if this is how she wants to be remembered. if this is an honor.

nobody uses language exactly the same way and it’s incredible

thinking about “he would not say that” and how it’s possible for people to pick up on those inaccuracies without even really noticing why. it’s hard to write characters, because they sound like you, because you sound like you. it brings into question where “dialect” stops and “language” starts. we’re all speaking english (as an example), but none of us use the same words to mean exactly the same things. dialects and microdialects appear in groups of people, because we tend towards being intelligible, but within a microdialect, every single person has another more specific understanding of the language they use. and it evolves! you learn a new meaning for a word, you hear a word you didn’t know before, you decide you like a word, you misunderstand a word and it takes on a new meaning. words are so important and beautiful and complicated. i love language.

move on. remember, but reconcile. die. live. lose yourself. find yourself again. miss someone who isn’t real. miss something you never had. find that something is better than you could’ve imagined. break. fix yourself. you meant something to someone, but who? you made something that mattered, but what? you were someone else, but when? you loved someone, but where? love. hurt. heal. need. want. lose. fail. live. plummet to the lowest point of your life. try to get back up. lose that too. find a way into the darkness. maybe you make it out of here. what then? you haven’t thought this far ahead. keep missing them. it won’t get better. nothing is enough. nothing has ever been enough. homesick for a place you’ll never go. lovesick for someone you’ll never meet. lost. found? no. maybe you don’t make it out of the darkness. maybe you never will. it’s too late. it’s too early. it’s too real. it’s too broken. it’s not perfect. nothing will ever be perfect. can you live with that? not yet. live three years in two weeks. live three years in the loss and the grief and never leaving. live two weeks in the world that could never understand you, that never will, that isn’t worth trying for. grow up. get older. things change, but not the right ones. things change, but in the wrong ways. things keep changing. no matter what you do. you can’t see the horizon. someone said something once. you can be a good person. but that’s not the question. what, then, can you ask? what can you seek answers for? start there. or somewhere else. but start. take something in your hands. you can write your name in the stars. you can live forever. you can be what you need to be. you can still remember them. but you can’t stay here. not like this. forge your own path. blaze your own trail. the only way to get out is to move on.