ONE READER

2017

one • June 2 • heather gray 

The trouble is, I’m not always sure where to put people. Someone new, shiny, sly with their wit. They trip the magnet and I am a willing sucker for their unintentional powers. Magnetic fields. I turn an acute ear to their syntax, a peripheral vision tracking how they hold their body, next to whom, and, most recently, how she dances as if she could reproduce with herself. Most recently, it was not even 20 minutes into her presentation that I caught myself saying, “Oh no,” under my breath. One subtle, left-field joke and I was a goner.  

So, where do I put her? What is this magnetism telling me? Are our souls or perhaps our ancestors just saying, “I see you.”? Is there something we need to learn that only we can teach one another? Are we meant to read science fiction out loud to each other on a roadtrip? Do you need a big spoon? And what if I don’t want to be your girlfriend but I can’t stop picturing grabbing a handful of your fucking heather gray sweatshirt at your chest and shoving you against a wall?

Friend zone?  

It’s easy to be shiny at first. We project how we want to be seen and we project who we want to see in others. Especially at first. Yet, many of these magnets have lost their conductivity over time. Sometimes months. Sometimes years. Planned obsolescence. It’s frequency has got me doubting my trust in magnets. More than once, I’ve even developed a repulsion - why did our opposites ever attract in the first place?  

For 8 years I couldn’t follow the pull. I told myself it was immature. Not real. Not worth it. If it just fades, what is the point? And now that I have returned to my agency, I am listening and letting my body move freely. It is a messy re-learning. Embarrassing at times. Yet, I want to exist in honesty and vulnerability. Not always out loud with others, but certainly with myself. I don't want to be ashamed of my sexuality or my love and curiosity for people. I want to hold multiple truths and these are them: 

Everyone wants to be loved. 

Feelings and words are impermanent. This doesn’t make them less real.  

Yes, there is ego. Some is okay. 

I am whole. You are whole. 

Blushing is truth.

There. are. so. many. people.  

My friend Alex once said that when she dies she wishes that she could hear the list of everyone who ever had a crush on her. What a gift, then, to say to someone, “I see you.” In this moment, I am pulled to you and it means everything and nothing. I expect nothing in return. And I put you here, in the story of my life.

two • August 7th • time 

Today is the one year anniversary of the day that Darcy left the house crying and I stared at the ceiling and thought, "It's time." I left the house too. I passed our usual coffee shop where her bike was and went to The Station. Everyone else was having a Sunday and talking to me like I was having a Sunday. I stared at nothing. The coffee was just a motion - it wouldn't go down easy. I would lose 15 pounds over the next few weeks.

"Feel it. The thing that you don't want to feel. Feel it. And be free."
Nayyirah Waheed

It was time. I didn't want it to be true, real, possible and yet, I knew. The thing I didn't want to feel for a long time.

It was right. I was hurting her. I was hurting myself.

Finally, I let myself let go. Float. Trust that life is long and there is more to know, to do, to love and as much as I thought (or she told me) I could experience that with her, it wasn't true. 

That day I went to the woods. I made an elaborate, circular design in the dirt with pinecones, sticks, leaves, and moss. I let tears and stomach fall. I sat with my pattern. I asked for clarity. 

My journal reads:

"I want to start again."

"I will be losing my best friend and I hope to find a best friend in myself for a while."

"I need to trust in abundance. I need to stay brave, strong and honest."

That day fucking sucked. It still sucks. I miss Darcy. I miss her laugh, her songs, her bedtime stories, her heart, the way she loved Simon. I miss that house. The sunrise, the garden, the simplicity. 

And how lucky I am to have lived and loved that way. To know that depth of connection and love and commitment. 

I often get her heartbroken voice in my head telling me, "You don't know what you're giving up." But I did and I do. I knew what I had and now it's gone. What I don't think either of us realized was the depth of what I was giving up to stay or what she was giving up to keep me. I deserve to be loved as deeply as she loved me. Just not from her. She deserves to be loved deeper than I loved her.

Ouch.

Tomorrow I will return to my place in the woods. I'll see what, if anything, remains of my structure. I'll sit with my year of hyperbolic highs and lows. The friends, the lovers, the exponential growth, and the return to self. I will finally lay rest to our bicycle-spoke infinity bracelets which have been holding unsettled energy in my home. 8 years felt like infinity, and I see now the many more infinities I have yet to live. 

In this exact moment I feel:

good
trite
teary
shy
hopeful
grounded

Today marks the end of the firsts. The first birthday without Darcy. First xmas. Spring. Bike camping. Simon's birthday. Now they will just be seconds and who counts those? I am no longer defined by this grief. I am grateful for this grief. The depth of self and emotion and resilience that I feel today - I can't imagine life without. Thank you, time.