#june project

I love my friends so much. So so much. Today one of my friends stopped by my office just to give me a hug bc I needed one, and then tonight I got to catch up with one of my best friends in the world who I haven’t gotten to talk to in like two or three months. I love them so much that sometimes I feel like I’m overflowing and I want to run and scream and hold them tight because I’m not alone anymore. I don’t think I’ll ever be alone again

I need to cry at a beautiful piece of art while being held by a friend who loves me unconditionally. I want to lie on the floor and stare at the ceiling with someone who fills every room we’re in together with a sense of ease and quiet comfort. I want to sit on the couch while it rains outside and giggle about dumb gossip and silly sensory videos. Winter is coming and the days are getting shorter and I feel myself getting older and it’s all okay, I’m happy, I just sometimes miss when my friends could walk to my apartment and stay up with me until 2am and I knew we would see each other again tomorrow. I love my life and sometimes the seasons change and I miss something that’s been gone longer than I’d like to admit, and I feel this ache even though I know the absence will be replaced with something new and beautiful soon

Standing at the pharmacy and the man next to me gives the pharmacist his last name, and he says “Scully, like the X-Files.” He sees me smile so we started talking. Apparently he could never bring himself to watch the show because he was a public defender, and two of his cases were used as inspiration for The Silence of The Lambs, so he said he doesn’t like to watch anything on TV that’s too dark. He said back in the day he used to get a lot of prank calls from people pretending to be Mulder, which I’m sure was annoying but also feels so quintessentially 90s. He was wearing this amazing rainbow tie die shirt. He was so lovely. I love this city so much

I love my job. I complimented a student the other day on her Soul Eater earrings and she grabbed her friend’s shoulders and they started jumping up and down. They were soooo excited that I recognized Soul Eater. So much joy from something so small. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that the kids aren’t going to be alright

Love can be hard, but other times it is so simple. Sometimes love is just showing up. It’s getting pizza and watching a good bad movie all piled up on the couch. It’s listening to Tracy Chapman at the kitchen table and talking about nothing. It’s remembering their favorite snacks and keeping them in a little drawer for their visits. Loving each other is what gives life meaning. How lucky we are to partake.

I sometimes forget that the version of Dale Cooper we meet in Twin Peaks is not necessarily all of Dale Cooper. We never really know what he’s thinking. What if the whole time Cooper is actually so scared. What if behind his calm demeanor is a man who is terrified of the evil that he knows is out there, and the only way he knows how to manage that fear is by looking directly at it. By poking and prodding at the world for answers to all his uncertainties. A man can only see through fear if he is already afraid. Maybe that night he goes into the lodge, every muscle in him begs to turn back, but the only thing more unbearable than confronting the evil is losing another person to it. Maybe in the moment he tells Harry he needs to go alone, Cooper wishes he could cry, that someone would hold his hand. But he is a secret agent, and he took an oath, and so he goes.

Watching Twin Peaks changed me. For over a year, I haven’t really been able to cry the way I used to. I’ve felt kind of far away from myself. When I watched the first episode in Twin Peaks, a dam broke within me. I cried four times just watching that one episode. Grief that I have been carrying and compartmentalizing came to the surface and it hurt, but I felt full again. As I’ve been writing about Twin Peaks, I have found it difficult to draw a line between my own grief and the grief I feel from the story, because all of it is real to me, and getting to feel it has been a privilege. I believe that grief is excess love with no place to go, and in allowing myself to grieve over Twin Peaks, I’ve reconnected with love I no longer believed I was capable of. I’m so grateful.