Not to sound like a broken record, but being in California has made me do a lot of reflecting. Setting the scene, I am eating my first Aciai bowl and I have recently turned twenty. The breeze here is a lot gentler here than back in Maryland, it’s colder than I expected. I’ve never been chilly before in the month of July. I always thought every part of California would be warmer than my little stretch on the mid-Atlantic, but I’ve been proven wrong.

The past few nights I’ve been having some wacky dreams that I remember in hazes.  An adventure or sci-fi, a fantasy, or the crushes that have given me nothing but the bare minimum.

They remind me of people I’ve met and forgotten about, or have tried to forget.

It reminds me that I miss being drawn to people. The mysticism of life has been so fleeting. I used to believe some feelings were so strong that two people had to be able to both feel it. 

This is a part of a poem I made back in high school about a crush. Admittedly I was very frustrated, very young but:  

“I’m under the impression that at one point you liked me back because my feelings are too strong to only be one-sided 
my attraction for you is too strong to only exist in me 
the way I can’t forget you must’ve been a sign from the universe because there’s no fucking way it’s just me 
I’d like to believe that you felt something for me too that at the least you thought I was attractive at least you liked talking to me”

– me circa 2021

There was a lot of pleading, and my writing wasn’t the best. Even though in those words I was questioning it, I believed feelings were a limb of the universe reaching out to one another. That he could feel my feelings, that whenever he did appear in my dreams he was thinking about me. Talking to him was as easy and interesting as being alive. Every conversation, meaningful and just a little exciting. In that time it felt like ​​he filled a void in me that has never been close to being filled. I used to believe that some people worked so well that every moment, every almost touch felt like letting two magnets find each other. And I would like to believe that these things are still true but in their absence, you forget they exist.

I realized I haven’t written in a while and I was thinking that I wish I could be in love just so I could be like one of those artists that have a muse. If I could count the poems I made about that boy, we’d be here a while. If I could count the poems, songs, and journal entries I made for my last crush, we’d be here even longer. I want to be an artist who has the motivation to write poetry and tell stories of life and the world they’ve come to know. I want to be creative again and have something to show for it. Pieces of myself have scattered through time and I’ve been trying to find my way back to them, to prove they still exist. Last year I was convinced I was broken and had forgotten how to feel the feelings I once had before. But I’ve learned that I might never feel those things again in the same way, they’ll probably be different because I am different. I’m still waiting to find all the pieces of me that I’ve lost. My summer has been drained by classes and in my pursuit of relaxation (running away to another state) I don’t have my guitar (who I miss dearly) or the inspiration to write a story or a poem, or frankly it seems the time to consume the art I enjoy.

I’m not sure I had a point to make when I started writing this, more like words to write down to feel productive. Or for the other reason I write now, to get things off my chest. Nikté was saying that she has such a powerful mind and usually what she wants tends to come to pass. Maybe it’s because I’ve surrounded my constant hopefully optimism with a mandatory side of cynicism, but I can’t remember something I REALLY wanted coming to pass. I haven’t felt a sigh of relief or that feeling of excitement and joy of being rewarded with something I wanted in a long time. Most of my sighs have been of distress and stress. I feel like life has been a constant upward battle to achieve what I want, to get that sigh of relief. I never really quite related to Love, Simon, but that thing Jenifer Garner says about breathing is what I want: 

“When you were little, you were so carefree. But these last few years, more and more, it’s almost like I can feel you holding your breath…You get to exhale now, Simon. You get to be more you than you have been in... in a very long time. You deserve everything you want.” 

Maybe the solution to this is to be more delusional? They say fake it till you make it, they say make your own reality until it is. Maybe when you get older you lose your sense of mysticism. Is it up to me to believe it’s still there even when I don’t see it, don’t feel it? Will my life be better off holding faith or am I setting myself up for disappointment? But of course, I’m very grateful for everything I’ve gotten and everything I have but why do I constantly feel like I’m dulling myself down to be okay with the way things are turning out? I think my ambitions are too big that they can’t exist in me for this long, so I have to let them go piece by piece until they fit my reality.

All of this might sound a little depressing, and I guess it might be a little melancholic, but I think it’s still too early in my life to call any of these thoughts facts—just speculations. I’m still hoping that by next year I make more music, write more, that I get really good at astronomy and become famous and everyone in the world wants me. I become the people’s princess and all my solutions are solved by the abundance of money coming my way. I go to clubs and pubs and find my way into lake houses with friends where we all get shitfaced and play games. Midway through the night, we all start confessing our love for each other and how we never want to not be in each others’ lives. Maybe that’s a tall order? Maybe it’s not.

—
* See Late July Audiotree live by Shakey Graves; My birthday is also in Late July
** Revised from Substack