Wondering Why I Was Still Stupidly Here and She Was Not

I also have something ugly to say

First….

I’m sorry.

Disappearing- in a sense- for over a week (“and some change”) is not within my nature in so many levels.

I have made a promise to you here, my Word Nerd friends and patient paragraph parsers, to write at least a couple of times per week.

For a full year, I wrote almost every single weekday.

I did what I promised, then, by building up a concrete archive of most of the things I dribble on about on other social-medias [which means: only Instagram, but I want to seem cooler than I am], so that I can expand in longer breaths, and mince nary a noisy word, and make a trove of pieces that can be skimmed through without ads, or character shortage, or any other digital delay therein.

A friend has asked me to try Substack to keep an archive that was easier to access for different types of readers… And so, I did.

And I’m proud that I did, even if I could and should have done it way better.

Then, at around the anniversary mark of 365, I decided to give myself a tiny bit of “grace” (given that my spine has only gotten worse, and I am not clocking a 9-to-5-ish as well, more often than not). And I aimed to keep writing longer and more dense pieces of Stream Of here… but to allow myself the chance to escape the Every Single Weekday brand I put upon myself.

I recognize that some of my favorite writers are doing nothing of the sort, yet they deserve no less encouragement for giving most of their merit to the world purely to keep arts going outwards (something we need now more than ever).

And so, here we are.

BUT….

Then I had a couple of weeks so filled with strive and struggle, that I frankly had to focus on survival more than anything else- and hope that you’d forgive me when I came type-crawling back. So here I am…

And I am genuinely, truly sorry.

I’m not sorry that life happens and sometimes we have to survive.

We all should do that, when given the alternative. But I am sorry any time that I’ve made a promise or a kismet calculation- even if I put it upon myself and no one asked that schedule of me- and I don’t make you potentially feel like your time, and tenacity, and tethered tolerance of someone like me isn’t the more valuable exchange of belief in another person that one can give.

You read this crap (hehe): That is the kindest currency around. Belief in someone else? Showing up for someone else? Saying, “I see you” by taking your precious time from your precious life to glance this way now and again?

I cannot fathom what will happen in this life when more and more of us can’t do so for one another.

This, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is the real “clout” people so foolishly say they chase. The give-and-take of TIME is like nothing else on this planet, in terms of your selflessness towards another.

You are selfless for being here…

And Readers should be told so more often.

So, I am telling you. And, I am truly sorry. (Your time is valuable and you deserve to know so) And, though the survive-struggle is not seemingly slowing down any time soon, I hope to do much better about communicating so, and reminding you of the value you bring to someone else’s life just by saying, “You. Are. Seen”

Below, please find a piece I scribbled to myself a few days ago while experiencing a rare burst of warmth during a non-existent “spring break” over here, and being slammed like lightening with what matters, and what I almost always think of.

It’s apropos, as well, given what I wrote vaguely around this time last year.

We don’t choose words (I firmly believe), words choose us…

And we are just vectors hoping to keep our head above water.

The sun is here again... and here, I find you.

“Why am I here and you’re not?”

We bonded over things that are maybe in poor taste, in hindsight, for a teenager to connect with an adult over. Her dance teacher. Her “second mother”.

The latter two words I didn’t want to repeat for awhile until I realized slowly that her real momma’s handwriting is embedded in my skin forever - always there, reminding me that it’s okay I loved her girl. I can never ever compare to her real mom… so I don’t have to. I can just be what she called me; What I didn’t earn but somehow slightly was.

We can just be this pair that didn’t really need a name or a label, like the young human who herself hated all labels. We could talk about feeding tubes and politics and mean girls and dance and dance and dance … and all that really matters is how she chose us. Any of us who felt the warmth of being chosen.

Sometimes I wonder if Zachary gets a little bit jealous.

(Is that funny to say? It’s funny to say)

Like he can feel me feeling the first warm spring day and remembering reading The Bright Hour while losing her, a-cast in sand… wondering why I was still stupidly here and she was not.

I am vain. I know the skin cancer in my family and in my history and I’m wearing two layers of sunscreen now. I know that my face will be wiry with wrinkles one day from my language and its inflection, and from telling stories for a living, and from grief.

But I also have something ugly to say:

I can’t do the parasols and the gloves and the shade without you either. If finding you in the (protected) warmth makes me “ugly” one day by ever changing, traditionaltrendy patriarannical standards= than so be it.

In the salty air, Zachary is there. (Probably educating others on Cystic Fibrosis as he did- cough, cough, salt- and reminding me that Gemma grief SHOULD be given as many character counts as we can).

In the sun, I ironically find the ironic shadows of the bittersweet stunning girl; gems glittering no matter the brightness around.

Spring makes me think of her.

Spring makes me miss them.

Spring makes me wish for another spring.

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THANK YOU!

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