alive&well

i’m glad (and so proud) to have prioritized mental health and physical health and healthy relationships. i love a boy very much, and it comes easier and more comfortably and so much more softly than i’d believed possible in practice.

i also have to acknowledge a sort of reluctant nostalgia for a time of my life that was, if wildly unhealthy, also incredibly romantic. i’m not talking love-romantic. i’m talking passionate, ardent, fervent, poetic romantic, burning bright and fast.

she had television-free movie nights with her roommates, using a borrowed projector to put a film up on a blank living room wall. she climbed onto roofs and talked to boys who loved her about their hopes and dreams. she could pack all of her possessions into four boxes. she kissed in cars and murmured her affections, never ashamed but usually astounded by their size in comparison. she practiced extreme self-discipline, stretching $20 to cover a month’s groceries and refusing to turn on the heater until she couldn’t feel her hands. she called this strength. she watched stars and pumped her legs on the swings at 3am. she would plan entire days around cooking something unnecessarily complicated to force her out of the blue. she reveled in spring breaks alone. sometimes she would leave parties without telling anyone to sit in the dark by herself. one time she found a poem that made her cry, and she wrote it down on a page in her notebook, folded it up, and carried it with her in her jacket pocket for three months straight. she was almost always cold.

i lived fearfully, loved fearlessly, and was so foolish in what i accepted for myself. i read like a damn john green character. 

even at the time, i worked to not romanticize my sadness, but i guess some measure of that comes with the territory of so much feeling. i maintain that getting a little selfish is the best thing i ever did. taking time to prioritize my needs allowed me to be there for myself, and then for those who stuck around.