#nc.personal

there is a reason why i adore to think of love in fragments. love is not a center piece. it is not solely just something. love are the fragments of the ordinary, the immediate, the tangible, and the half formed thoughts. love is a fleeting moment looped into infinity, the start of a smile, and a feeling that is never just the highest in the spectrum. love is yellow, like daylight and happiness, as the roses in the backyard of my childhood home. love is in that five minute pause, a name that links to a familiar face, and the crumbs around the source. it is the tangible and the immediate, because there are crumbs that always surrounds. love is not centerpiece because it has never been a final product. love is the joy in the process, the pieces of a whole, the crumbs that surround, and your first heartbeat.

the crumbs of your heart fall then scatter as different faces of love. like sacrifice and surrender. like the abstract feel of knowing something is always around. but it can also be as immediate as the first sip of good tea. your back hitting the bed after a long day. the first day of fall. a damien rice song that summarizes the melancholy you never could pinpoint.

what’s immediate for me are the memories. 4407, “this is my daughter, trixie,” and yellow petals.

this past week has been a rollercoaster of even shittier dips bc of (the same root problem i unfortunately cannot get away from). and it’s hit me even worse than all the other times. what i went through just prompts me to come here to hopefully get the message across to somebody who may resonate w it now that i am speaking and thinking with a clearer head. three days ago i could barely speak clearly. i was angry, hurt, extremely terrified—above all, exhausted. but i feel the need to say this bc i feel that this is an unspoken problem a lot of us unknowingly carry:

you are not responsible for people and their actions. the burden is not on you if somebody tries to off themselves. you are not evil for establishing boundaries, ceasing contact, and curating your space to serve your peace and wellbeing.

the “im gonna k*ll myself so this is the last time i’ll ever msg u for a favor,” is a line i have heard my own father and sibling say to me time and time again every time i didn’t do what they wanted me to do. i used to feel so heavy all the time because of it. i felt chained in my environment. that threat felt like a creeping ghost that would sit on my shoulders everyday, trading shadows for flesh, growing so heavy it became tangible. and it did. this past week i felt like i was the devil. like i pulled the biggest sin because i wasn’t patient enough. i wasn’t kind enough. i wasn’t lenient with my own boundaries—for family— enough.

i thought keeping my space and staying no contact would be a temporary fix until i could get to somewhere more permanent. but i carried those words and wore them like they were my own self inflicted wounds. and they are not. i love my family so much. i hate that we are beyond repair. i hate that i let myself endure their mistreatment for over fifteen years. i hate that i tried to reshape myself into different forms of patience and strength when really i am just soft. i am tired; i am not angry nor vengeful; i am just nicole. more than anything i want to sit home for a week or two and just write for a while. i want to eat good food, sip a sweet drink, and sleep without feeling burdened by things that were pointed at me like weapons since i was so young.

i really….thought shit like that are just passing comments. perhaps to those who are more mentally tough. but i am just soft. i don’t want anyone to get hurt. none of this is my fault, and none of their misfortunes have ever been because of me. for god’s sake neither of them have ever supported me and i’m here making an honest living building life in a space away from all the energy that’s tried to drain me. i say and acknowledge that now with a thought process that isn’t as shaky as it was a few days ago.

the silence has always been an open door, so you try to fill the patchy places with noise. you listen to the sound of rain; fall asleep to a heartbeat; begin to measure time with beats instead of seconds. like this, the present flows. like this, it’s bearable. like this, moving through the motions doesn’t feel like the mundane. but then it’s friday, and it’s seven, and you’re not sat at the dinner table, with company across you. it’s friday, and the room this time around smells like a detergent your mother never bought and the rattle of pills by your cabinet has your name on the prescription bottle. 

it’s friday and you’re remembering that you are here, while love was there. home was nine years ago and the last time you ate at a dinner table with conversation was when you were thirteen years old and didn’t have much tolerance for spice like she did. now, you can’t eat your meals without chili sauce. now, you’re saying your graces in a murmur, because no one is in the room with you to share that sentiment. 

love was made and held in five years. a home with the garden of roses; your room with the view of autumn’s foliage; her cross-stich art of angels framed in the hallway and beside the clock downstairs.