January
I am learning that new life
Doesn’t change the past
But it might just be able to heal it.
Welcome to the world, little one
I hope you fall in love with this place.
I’m excited to watch you grow up
To watch the rest of us grow close
Alongside you.
February
I have some questions, like –
What do you do when loneliness
Feels like the biggest thing in the room
Lately, I can’t tell the difference between
People coming together
And people moving apart.
I answered the phone and realized
I didn’t know where to run
So I wrote myself a reminder that
My life will not give out
Underneath the pressure of loneliness and loss
It will just get heavy.
March
I spent several months searching
Only to realize I was exactly where I wanted to be.
Right now my portable washing machine
Seems like the greatest thing ever.
April
And I love this feeling
When the air is cold but if you’re still
And you lie in the sun for a while
Everything gets so warm
The kind of warm that feels like a deep hug
From the sun itself.
May
How gentle and fragile we all are
Our little secrets
Big laughs
The way we fall in love
And the way we mourn it.
June
Today, I imagine I am a soundboard
I will soak up all the noise
I will give you a safe space to spill your thoughts
I will catch them
Fold them neatly
And give them back to you
So they are easier to carry
This can be easier to carry.
July
I could sit in a car with all of you for 5 hours, or more
He might grow tired of our hand gestures
The repeated songs
Our voices, only getting louder
We’ll sleep in backyards, campgrounds
Fall asleep to ocean sounds
Log cabins, cottages
On hillsides and mountain edges
I’ll wake up earlier than the rest and soak it in
I want to hang on to this
Turn on your music and drive some winding road
I’ll forget about carsickness
My hand out the window
Counting trees that pass by
I want to stay here a little longer
The only thing we did wrong was we didn’t turn around.
August
You look at it and see
Geography.
I can’t look it at and not believe
That there’s something deeper than that.
To me, it’s design
So intricate and detailed
The very idea that this just sort of “happened”
Over thousands of years
Simply seems like a hollow explanation
I don’t think the world was born with so many millions of tiny details
Out of nowhere
I don’t believe we were ever supposed to accept that idea
Without some significant questioning.
September
The weekend made sense
Once we had all taken a personality test.
We sat around a kitchen table
And laughed as we found ourselves
Summed up in brief words and sentences
Our faults and our gifts
Arranged between 1 and 9
If only they were always this easy
To digest.
October
You wanted to know what I used as an off button
I fumbled for an answer because in the moment
I wasn’t sure
You were so damn distracting
It was funny then
When the weekend itself became an off button
I got in your car and I stopped thinking
About everything outside of it
I never knew two people who barely knew each other
Could feel so close.
November
November felt like
All the decisions I had made over the past year
Started laughing at me.
I began choking
On vulnerability.
Anxiety told me
We could pick up where we left off
And I did everything I could to shut it down
But we still fell into a few old patterns.
November felt like a shitty step backwards
I am trying to imagine that this is okay
That this small step back only shows
How far forward I had come.
Because if this had happened 2 years ago
I wouldn’t have stepped backward
I would have fallen down.
December
I painted the year in gold
Called it the best one yet
And laughed at the irony of it
When I started looking back
I saw all of it’s cracks
And began to feel ashamed
For feeling so confident
I suppose this is just a reminder
That there will always be both
I should consider it a win
That right now
I can focus on the best.