wrote this for you in 2016

i wish i could tell you that it gets easier each time, that the pain gets lesser every time but we all know human loss never works that way — they say that grief is like an ocean and that sadness comes in waves, but sometimes it's like tsunami tides in your eyes— for each and every loss is unchartered territory and we're always finding ourselves learning to tread water once more

perhaps the hardest part of this life is knowing that what ultimately consumes us will always be love and loss, we will always, always, always have to learn to deal with presence/absence, the undoing, the unfolding, the falling apart, the losing and we know it'll hurt once more, we could spend the entirety of our existence trying to shield ourselves from potential pain and grief and heartbreaks of sorts but when it hits you one more time you'll be earth-struck windswept all the same

perhaps the worst thing about growing up is the disenchantment of watching your childhood heroes being reduced to mere mortality, and that the world is akin to an onion -- as we grow and mature we peel off the layers and gradually find ourselves at the the core, the core of humanity and sometimes we arrive there all too prematurely, to have to take the weight of knowing and the weight of understanding, to have to learn to fathom and deal with pain
but then again, like my favorite line — someday this pain will become useful, that you will grow from this and learn from this and hopefully one day become stronger than you've ever been before

i wish i knew what it felt like but i can only imagine — to lose someone who's the glue that holds all of you together, without which it feels as though you are mere distinct individuals, barely even keeping together a pointless kinship weaved out of obligation and circumstance, and to think that what's already wafer thin begins to form cracks, not where the light gets in, but cracks that do nothing more than to make you feel as though you're at the very cusps of shattering
and sometimes you wonder if this is the second loss

cancer is a treacherous thing, and to think that so many people whom we love dearly and hold so close to our hearts are perpetually at the mercy of it, that i know, the helplessness, i know it too,
but take comfort in the fact that the best people in our lives are in better hands, better places, and be thankful, that they've once walked this earth and blessed your life in ways that would always, always warm your heart; for we are made to love things that only death can touch and the only thing left to do is to remember the good bits, remember the ways they've opened up your world and know that you've done what you could

and know that sometimes life likes to take you to the highest point only to let you free fall in a slow and tormenting manner, and that sometimes loneliness may seem like your only friend, but also know that perhaps someday, somehow things will gradually fall back into place although never the way they used to, but the end point is that everything will eventually be alright, and you'll find your way somehow

it's just the thought of knowing that we'll both go to paris someday, without each other - but it doesn't and couldn't change the very fact that the first time i went to paris i did so with you
and if nothing else in my life is real or true anymore
at least i know it was then, and perhaps the only realest thing i'll ever have to myself
i don't know you anymore, and i struggle with this everyday, this betrayal, this pain, this feeling of never being quite enough for a person
and i don't know what to do
some days it feels like i'm climbing this eternal mountain, but never really getting to the top, never being able to say i conquered this feeling, never being able to say it doesn't matter to me anymore
i don't know what to do
can someone tell me what i should do
it really feel like i lost a very huge part of myself, and i don't know how to find it
you were my best friend, you really really were
sometimes i wish you were still around
but you don't need me anymore and all i'm left with is myself

Jesse: I kind of see this all love as this, escape for two people who don't know how to be alone. People always talk about how love is this totally unselfish, giving thing, but if you think about it, there's nothing more selfish.

Before Sunrise (1994)

"But for some people, there are no real good-byes. I think if you have a meaningful experience with someone else, a true communication, they are with you forever in a way. We are all a part of each other in ways we’ll never know."

for the last fucking time ever

i rly wish i've never known you

“I hope when people ask what you’re going to do with your English degree and/or creative writing degree you’ll say: ‘Continue my bookish examination of the contradictions and complexities of human motivation and desire;’ or maybe just: ‘Carry it with me, as I do everything that matters.’ And then smile very serenely until they say, ‘Oh.’”
— Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar (via excessivebookshelf)

shr