Hey

She says it’s fair to say

He was my greatest love

I think it’s fair to say

She is my greatest friend

Bold and so insightful

I know she’s human too

She has felt these feelings

And seen endings fully through

I admire that she’s graceful

And spicy if need be

If I didn’t find love elsewhere

friends give it to me

I miss the orange things

But I have love for myself

And if the warm is a drug

I wish I could go back to my young brain

Write a song for you

A melody from fresh words and feelings

Youth and raw love

Coasting. I smell lilies and they fill my lungs

With air and orange things

You smell like lilies and the dopamine

That stores my cells to a boil

Raindrops make my skin form bumps

Mounds of joy and love and orange things

& perhaps words on a screen

Can’t express the nonsense

I write to you of orange things

Fuzzy feelings and thoughts I’ve never had

Nonsense and butter and eggs and beans

And orange things

2025 it stings

The orange things make me dry heave

My love for you feels less like a sprinkle

And more like a need

I miss the delicacy

Of your touch on my skin

I miss the orange things

The snow wants to fall but it melts

I want it to build and stack

But it slides

I want so badly to feel your fire

but its smothered

I long for the orange things

They made me feel so whole

Please just give me orange things

I found a home in your embrace

When miles fluctuate like the ebb and flow of tides between us,

The road separates me from my home

Friction is my curse

Once Raw feelings, burnt from anger

Have we pressed too hard?

Sometimes I’d rather morph together than feel your presence slipping

Together seemed a daunting task

If home were a place, I might just walk there

Cold and barefoot, I walk nowhere

And everywhere

Searching for that place

Not that warm embrace

Hard work found a building for us

With walls and windows and sometimes,

Oceans still form on the kitchen table between us

When two transient souls discover love

Where, does it overlap?

If home is not a place, and

I lack that warm embrace

Then all I have is fleeting

& Flighty tendencies have always called my name

A candle lit dinner to a crusty truck stop

I don’t have a preference

Scared to lose what I barely held

In passing

Guitars hang on the wall

They hum when I speak

Of places far from steady

“Move to a ski town”

The words rumble through the speaker of a phone

To my ears from a place far away

Flakes are falling on my skin

Caught by my lashes, melted by my heat

My service is full bars, 3G – much better than I thought it would be! So no data transfer. I have tried video chatting, posting, and sending people pictures but alas, the service only works for text and phone calls. I figured I would sit here and think about my year, where has it gone? We say that every year, as if we blink and memories of the past revolution around the sun flash before our eyes. I feel compelled to share how my year has gone. Call it loneliness? The lack of human beings I have seen that I care about, that care about me? That’s not to discredit the 100s of strangers I’ve had lovely (and not so lovely lol) interactions with in the past month and a half.

I started my year in Massachusetts, my home town, in my childhood yard with my oldest friend and my family, burning Christmas trees as is tradition on New Year’s Eve – but at a much smaller scale due to a certain pandemic. I got some ski runs in at the slopes of Loon mountain the next day, in another state that I absolutely adore (♥️New Hampshire♥️)

I drove back to my actual home of 5 years, Lima Ohio, to go back to work and begin construction of the $5,000 PC my employer trusted me to build (how did I get here lol, if you asked me what I thought my future career would be before college, I would have said “as far away from the IT field as possible”)

I took and passed a test to become a certified drone pilot by the FAA. Since passing, I have flown my drone over various scenery and cities in 14 states and counting.

I spun fire for the first time in a rock garden that is like nothing you’ve ever seen before with a dear friend. What a wonderful, powerful experience! This garden is in the back yard of a sweet, eccentric man in the hometown of Neil Armstrong, Wapakoneta. My Ohio people know 😏 I went on to spend every Thursday evening this summer jamming out vocally and on my mandolin with a group of 10-20 older musicians who I might categorize as the original hippies? Lol

I danced with great friends in the back room of a vape shop that I met from a video gig I had at the beginning of the pandemic. I picked up the bass guitar, an instrument that literally makes me feel like the most badass lady on the planet even though I am at a below beginner level haha.

I took pictures with my first film camera, and had a friend come over and teach me how to develop it myself in my dark bathroom. Definitely gave me an admiration for the blind! The film strip hung to dry on my shower curtain rod until I was able to invert the negative and see my extreme inexperience with the original medium of photography LOL.

I flew to Florida in March with two people, I now consider family after years of friendship in Ohio. We had a great time sitting by the pool and laying on the beach until we got back to the car to see the $120 ticket because we were so excited to run to the beach that we forgot to pay for parking! That was fun. NOT

Later in the year, I went on to participate in the marriage of these too amazing people shortly after buying their first home in the poppin’ town of Columbus, Ohio. Love you guys big time.

I got inked for the first time since I was 18! One cute and impulsive tattoo of a little bee, and one tattoo I’ve been talking about getting since I was 17 with my non blood sister ♥️. I’m blessed by the people in my life! And guess who the artist was? Another stunning soul I have gotten to know in the past two years, who has just finished building her schoolie to live and travel in!

That same artist friend of mine went on to give me the honor of tattooing her! A little brasil philodendron now resides on her shin by my hand. Love you Caroline ♥️

This year I bought new rollerblades and have traveled the country putting 100s of miles on them in various cities: San Francisco, Boston, Charlotte, Savannah, Tampa, New Orleans etc etc.

I took an exhilarating pre-travel flight to San Francisco with my covid raincheck ticket and visited with my aunt and uncle for nearly 2 weeks. Exploring the city, hiking the Bay Area elevation, singing in karaoke bars in Japantown, painting in an iconic art studio, flying the drone over their neighborhood. The memories are warm in my heart.

This year I parted ways with my partner of 5 years.

This year I packed up my entire life and the home I had spent 4 years in. (That’s a long time for a 23 year old!) I sold many earthly possessions, I packed my cats, I packed my piano, I packed my memories.

I moved my things to my parents house. &&& let me just take a moment to thank them for how wonderful and understanding they’ve been.

When I told them, hey, I know this sounds crazy, but I NEED to blow my savings traveling the country living in my car, they were not totally on board lol. But they ultimately understood that this was what I needed before the next job, and there’s no words that I could say to thank them enough for supporting me and for watching my cats and my greenhouse volume of plants while I go through my existential crisis that has lead me over 5,000 miles around the American continent.

I have been on the road for nearly a month and a half. I have hiked mountains, danced with strangers, kayaked with manatees, flown in a 2-person plane that is triple my age, explored museums and walked through historical locations. I have been sun kissed and sunburnt. I have spent all night changing the alternator in my car in the Walmart parking lot of a small Louisiana town. I have made coffee under many skies and on many beaches. I have superglued homemade window covers to the glass of my car because I’m tired of them falling on me in my sleep. I have cooked Mac and cheese in the top level of a parking garage at 2am cause what else am I gonna do when I’m hungry on bourbon street?

And now here I am, in a rural (understatement) town about a rocks throw from the Mexico border. I’m about halfway through my trip and if I was looking for answers to what I should do next or what my purpose is, I don’t think I’m gonna find that on the road.

What I have found is one hell of a life changing experience.

Reader, if you’re still there, here are a few excerpts from my travel journal entries:

“Slept in my first Walmart parking lot last night among a fleet of RVs, felt safer that way. Minutes from Folly Beach, SC, but I will drive inland soon to see an old friend. I’ll come back here tonight”

“Skated 4 miles on the Tampa riverwalk today and got a nice shower.”

“I am drawing some mutant palms among the yellow umbrellas & blue chairs on Treasure island. The Cabana boy told me yesterday that if I came back today, I could have a free cabana for the day.

& so I sit on the blue chairs under the yellow cabana, wondering how I found myself in such a beautiful moment.

Another day at the beach on Treasure island.”

“My skin is burnt from Florida’s hot rays. I thought it was kissed but my northern complexion was unprepared for the beating sun.

My eyes are crusted from dried tears.

A vagabond life I live.”

“Parked on the wharf, 2:00am, my eyes open to the sound of cooing owls. I decide to head out

To the beach I go, away from the little key that has a population of 700.

Tires screech to a stop on the bridge over the water leaving the town. The sky is stunning.

I have lost track of the amount of shooting stars my eyes have absorbed. It’s 3:20 am.”

“Overcast commanded the sky when I arrived in Panama City this morning. It seemed to swallow the high that was brought on by the clear night sky. I had a frustrating time with my stove as I lugged it through the sand. Complete with coffee supplies and complications, but I was determined to make my morning cup of Joe by the water.”

“Shards from massive sand dollars cover the white sand that is clustered into drifts like that of snow. It’s funny how I’m down where the weather is temperate, yet my mind goes to the cruel and icy landscape that is New England.”

“Skated around and fell with my coffee. I smell like coffee”

“I stayed in a parking garage and it was terrible. People were honking at every corner of the windy, multilevel structure. The sounds bounced off the concrete walls all night.”

“Hah my Friday night did not go as planned. I ended up staying up all night replacing the alternator in my car in a town I drove to to DoorDash. I woke up in that town and now I hit the road. Houston here I come.”

“Fire twirls before my eyes on the rooftop of a warehouse littered by art and junk at every level. Who knew this could be found on Houston’s Main Street.”

“Today I left the ground.

Today I soared the skies.

Today I coasted above the land that I have spent most of my life walking, driving, skating, swimming, climbing on.

It took me sideways.

It took my breath away.”

The tears transpire like transactions between me and the ongoing existence of life

I ache

The days were much slower back then.

The sun would rise and we’d suck the morning dew off of blades of grass.

Stretch the blades between our thumbs.

And whistle our fears away.

We waded through sweet sticky fields while the summer sun smiled down so eagerly.

Wishing us well while darkening the tones of tan on our shoulders.

Where can I go from here? When all I thought I had has crumbled to dust and blown freely in the wind, I feel light amongst my sadness. As if I, too, will be blown by the wind and her wandering tendencies.

No longer rooted by the duality and partnership that encompasses a relationship, I find myself overwhelmed by feelings of weightlessness.

My sorrow dissipates as I give way to the wind.