at least i think this was it, i cant remember

but i like this anyways

sept 21

it is the end of summer

the end of a lot of things

antioch, in most ways, i should email raewyn about that one credit. the end of this house, living with two people who have been hurt by me and i don’t know if it is just indoctrination from my mother but i imagine their resentment probably radiates, tinges the environment with negativity. at least i know we don’t trust each other and it has been too late for that for a while.

seth. i left him in the recycled air of his parents small suburban chicago apartment with a lot of expensive musical instruments and 6 different types of dried fruit- jumbo raisins, pears, figs, prunes, currants, apricots.  in cities i always feel weighed down by all the trash of all the people stacked on top of each other. his mother makes quilts out of ugly sweaters but the quilts were still ugly. he said i should write something or draw something and send it to all my funny friends and it would be like the new yorker “name the caption”. we went to the beach and made each other laugh like it used to be, i was having a good time, we ate dinner sitting in the sand watching seagulls fight over bits of apple that we threw at them. but he asked me to fill in the blank, “if only _____”  and the thing i thought of was “if only i was here with sam” but i couldn’t say that and anyways it wasn’t exactly what i was feeling. it would have been a really nice place to share with sam, sure. to share with someone i feel close to, physically connected to, to share with someone i can just be with. it would have been a nice place to share with someone i could hold my body against. it would have been a nice place to share with someone that could walk slowly, that could sit in quiet that didn’t feel like a struggle against my pace.

i told seth that i would be fine, good with this, if this is what there is. coming home to someone so comfortable, always sweet, easy. feeling held metaphorically, building together and eating together and laughing together and coming together and learning from each other how to do it all. but it is the question of “maybe there is deeper there is more there is better” could be more in love and i think that there is, obviously i am only 25 and i have only had relationships that are short, by life’s standards. spending 30 years with someone’s gotta be a whole different level of in love

but i know what being in love is as i have experienced it, why most people hardly hold my interest even when they are physically attractive and charming, at least heres one big component:

i fell in love with miles because i felt some kind of deep connection in our values, more than anyone else before, more than anyone around me.  pretending it was just the two of us. lost and floating amongst the hipsterism, in our hazy bubble against the world. he was cynical and “bohemian” and sort of halfway anticapitalist, blue collar and the friends i mostly had were upper middle class.

justin cared about food and derrick jensen and getting better and he shaped himself into alt punk radical screaming acoustic pat the bunny songs wearing combat boots, a big backpack, zines and bikes and hitchhiking and rolled cigarettes. we read bell hooks and susan griffin to each other and tried to do polyamory. i thought he matched so completely what i wanted.

and now sam. simplicity. home. building a life, one with fruit trees, sawdust, chickens, driving long roads surrounded by something that seems like it goes on forever. really just the two of us and the dogs or the cows or the coyotes. satisfactorily to the left but still solid, realistic, pragmatic. honest work and none of this philosophy look at me i’ve got nietzsche books on my shelf bullshit

its not the end of sam. and its not the end of yellow springs. and its not the end of ohio for a while. corry posted on facebook a picture of him and his new home with the comment, “Cairo, WV..... owning camper+ 1/8th of an acre runs you about a grand to purchase. = rent in da city for tha month Just gotta get kraftwerk to stop thru Appalachia” and i don’t even care about kraftwerk or seeing fucking famous music live.

birthday

i do not feel BIRTHDAY but i kind of like that. low expectations. last year my mom came to yellow springs and we went for a walk, cold, sunshine, justin bought gin for us and fleet and jessica’s van died in the gas station parking lot and we went sledding and then i went to the gulch and kissed adam w everyone in there bc i figured it was my fucking birthday but i walked home alone or maybe with big bag of popcorn? i think seth stayed in his room most of the day. we had corral elijah and leave the gulch to push the van across the street when the gas station closed at 11. sam had aggressively made out with me on his bed a few weeks ago after i kissed him at a fairy themed birthday party at his house, ! oh i can figure out when exactly bc the superbowl was the sunday after...it was jan 30. but there had been only vague and random conversation since then and i assumed it was going nowhere

since at least monday ive been aching and crying everyday about sam. now after two months apart it still is surprising me how much i love him which is a good and painful thing. well on wednesday i only cried in the morning until i took it upon myself to take control of the situation, got ben (married 37 yr old mattress salesman with a somewhat open relationship i met through a craigslist ad for topless bartenders) to invite me over for 20 minutes before he had to leave for work, made out with him on his couch and got two adderall. the adderall was real nice but then i slept badly. so then thursday was bad and i watched a lot of friends especially the parts with ross and rachel and cried a lot.

i cried throughout the 15 hours i got to spend with sam friday night and saturday morning. he did his strange tearless hyperventilating crying also and had some moments of panic-attack kinda thing but was mostly more composed then me. cried all day yesterday as i drove home and walked the beckers dog and driving to get julia and driving home from sitting and eating decadent sweets at coffee emporium with her and when i was eating dinner with my parents and told them what sam said “your parents are amazing people and some days i miss them more than you” and that he wanted to be sure i told them that

at every point in our relationship i naively underestimated its importance to me and his unique incredibleness and i am grateful now to feel the weight of that because i did not want to look back on the 8 months 

(ok this is irrelevant but for my records. yes we kissed for the first time on jan 30 so thats 11 months from seed to chopping down of the crop and we fooled around and then fucked over spring break end of march. but we didnt start to fall in love until 2 days after his birthday, april 24 and we didn’t acknowledge that until may 1 after all the festivities oil wresting may day party gulch dancing and i had finally taken the antibiotics so my vagina was way happier and i brought him back to my room and the sex was real that time and so good i invited him to spend the night but he got too anxious and left around 3 i think)

we spent loving each other as foolish meaningless insubstantial unfounded. although i trust and assume based on all past experience that it is right for me to be alone now. 

i am watching this squirrel perched in my backyard, its little heart beating and rippling its flesh i really wish i could hold it (in a way it would enjoy)

at one point on friday night i got back into that kinda cuteness that feels so good and sweet with a significant other but in any other context seems like fake icky infantile behavior like pretending to be a penguin or something and sam says “why are you being so cute now”, and i’m like “haven’t i been cute all night?” and he’s like, “yeah but that was more pathetic, like broken squirrel cute” (bc i was crying a lot) 

so i still love him (i am now crying and thinking about how even at that very beginning in may he was helpful, conscious of my needs. how he always clipped his waterbottle to his jeans and made sure to have water and even in something as tiny as that he took care of me better than anyone ever has) and i am not totally sure what to do with that besides what i have already been doing

-explaing to him in many different ways exactly how i feel and why it wasn’t working and i ended it and cant be with him now but of course because i am me i still feel like there are things i want to continue to explain to him and probably will if i keep thinking about it, which i will. but within reason bc i do really want to let him move forward

-do all the shit that i need to do that makes me feel good about myself

-be thoroughly open to possibility and engaged with new people i come across

-see how i feel about it all in 3,6,9 months 

(-try to come back in june bc it does break my heart to think about not being there for graduation/sam’s senior project presentation, all that shit in general. i was thinking oh my god i should have just taken the farm job, saved more money, lived with sam it would be spring walking out into the field swimming lying on the grass but i felt so strongly i couldn’t do that and be in that environment anymore for so many reasons but to feel confidence and competency elsewhere seems really necessary and it is only now where i feel really wanting to be with sam again that it sounds good, also i was really done with that job and other sam is doing it and that is great)

-trust in like the big universe mama nature energy force that if i learn that i needed to scratch some itches but what i really do want is to be with sam then in 6, 9, 12, 100 months it will work itself out

what i am still not so understanding is why didnt i feel more clearly like i was in love with him throughout the time we spent together. i think for me, it is really a physical feeling of intense attachment and also adrenalin associated with the person? along with like the deep care and enjoyment and love of a person i have towards so many family friends etc and i felt it at the beginning for sure and when we would be apart and then reunited and i always knew i loved him and was really really drawn to him physically and maybe that is just how it is. but now its like a mantra i feel in my chest- i’m in love with sam i’m in love with sam i’m in love with sam- so solid and undoubtable when plenty of times when we together i felt like i just couldn’t tell

wtf blah

i am 26 when i have felt scared bc i was 25 and no idea about career where to live car partner etc i would think ok but by 26 things will have changed or if i dont have it any more figured out i will really freak out it really doesn’t work like that because things have changed and revealed themselves and its all still completely not settled but it is totally fine and i think i am accepting the journey and how i need to do things for myself at this point in life and still be on the road to my own solidness and growth despite the fact that i love the fuck out of people and really do not want to leave them/opportunities like having my parents in my life and in my children’s life

in regards to people going on a roadtrip to chicago/not being included/having a weekend alone:

this has been a vortex truly going nowhere but looping in my own head and i guess thats a little different now

and i think im moving on from the kinda content i put here sometimes the live journal phase maybe its doing this senior project but i haven't been detailing all the kisses and the tears as much but i probably still want to so

here's a little snippet

earlier i was thinking man just a slow thursday nothing exciting coming down the pike came back from class and just tryna watch transparent and do some yoga before bed

then seth knocks and he's in my bed telling me what i've already known for years about his consistent attraction towards me and desire to be with me and how he would spend all his time with me in my room talking wherever doing whatever weird adventures all over campus and never get any work done if he let himself and every time he doesn't want to stop hanging out and is i guess disappointed because the night ends i go to sleep he leaves alone but how maybe we could have more physical affection in our relationship even though i want and need it to remain platonic and this has been coming for so long so its good to talk about although i wonder

how can so many people be in unrequited love around here

i love him i absolutely do and his friendship has been so important to me and we have talks where i learn so much and i feel his care for me in more depth than i have with many other relationships

and then its you know its like this ^ but adam is outside my window and i let all that chill in for long enough to kiss him hard and give him a big red scarf

i feel so not dizzy about A thank god and a little bit achey about SC and good and also a little hopeful about (i don't want to write this yet) and also (same bc its ~a fleeting desire~) and delighted bc S has become such a fantastic part of my life and curious because every quarter so wildly vacillates and just who the fuck does know?

i think im in a pretty good place to write that email i need to, to rearrange the furniture in here, to find any opportunities to dance, to 

SEVERAL DAYS LATER

i made two raw cheesecakes, one "pumpkin" (butternut squash) full of eggs and homemade super rich snowville sour cream w almond/walnut/coconut/date/raisin crusts and i went on a run in the humid misty weather at midnight

i cant really stop talking to him

i get too close, microscopic, to a level at which endearing flaws begin to make me nauseous and then i recoil and i hurt and i hurt them well i would  hurt them if they were at all aware but it seems these people that i chew up and spit out tend to come with a persistent lack of perception   

i should know when to leave things when to let sitting dogs lie far away from me because although this time it isn't sex that did it its still letting someone in, in that way that makes them think i mean something more than i ever will and its always been so easy to make em fall a little in love and prob a lil bit hate me because i would hate me too 

eros was making fun of me that all it takes to get me crying is a room full of people and someone speaking, its not that bad but i was surprised it hadn't really happened yet, a little bit w ms natasha, but i def felt it at the end of hearing lierre keith, she was vague and generalized and dramatic but she's right about everything and she believes in this food and shes radical too and i really appreciate that. i dunno shes an andrea dworkin feminist and shes transphobic as fuck but she said this beautiful thing about where she finds her hope is with the girls and the grasses, that the single biggest thing you can do to reduce population is teach girls to read and that when we step back the perennial polyculture will come back and it was beautiful to remember that was the book justin read in his tent riding to yellow springs and what we talked about those first few nights, it was beautiful

everywhere i walk there are waves of peppermint or lavender or tea tree oil or just that warm aromatherapy smell like in a massage therapist's office people here be on their essential oil game

on sunday adam cooked pork and lamb w sweet potatoes/carrots/onions and i made salad w pesto dressing and we ate in that empty cold porch room but then

monday warmed up and we ate dinner up on the top of the amphitheater and i went over later after class and there was an impressive three way volley and it felt back to family and i ate all this snickers ice cream and then 

tuesday J and S and I voted and played a lil bball and went swimming, well we tried at first and got shut down b/c they were in leggings/boxers and you had to be wearing a suit w a lining and so i got all back into my clothes and walked out as they were coming from the lost and found with two pairs of swim trucks so we jumped in unison and then i sat in comcil which i actually love and then went and watched the wire and walked to BP in the drizzle smoked newports chewed gum and touched a lot it was nice i didn't want to leave but then

i did this spanish thing with conor and allie and it was actually so fun COMO TE VAS and yea doing things with people is a better way lets stop all this talking talking talking i just wanna run around and sing and eat and fuck and then

i really had the most stupendous day yesterday. it was so warm and excellent outside and

mihiret and i looked at beautiful pictures of forests and she seemed genuinely engaged even though i cant tell if she understands much of what im saying and then mani was so frickin cute and showed me this nepali song and i hope i am able to communicate more patience, interest and respect that he obviously receives from most of the other adults in that school

then a nice quiet calm lunch and a friendly moment with J

then basking in the sun working at the farm + drake, eminem and some baby moles and failed mechanical fiddling then

laundry, emails, ordering books, etc then

30 min at the gym feeling swole and tight doing my kettlebell reps then 

burger night and a nice dinner w A then 

the student union where eros and elijah gave everyone our brief history and i felt so in love w antioch for teaching me self/community advocacy and eros and elijah and justin and adam and sara and everyone else too just for coming this far and doing this thing and also all the new folks who are carrying the fucking torch then

we were all in case together w the liquor flowing and it was family it was coming home it was chill it was love i was so happy i couldn't hide it and 

maybe working on a new friend and 

kisses and cuddles aren't bad either and

now just to make today as good despite the alcohol and little sleep