every year or so i read back through all my old tumblr text posts. they ingrain this past version of my voice in my head at such a volume that she sits with me for days after. i miss her sometimes. other times i fucking loathe her. most of the time i just feel bad for her. not with pity, per se… the emotion is closer to anguish or grief. my teenage and early twenties were the most tumultuous years of my life, but in the same they made me the person i am today. i remember how desperately i craved human interaction. i would cling to the thought of connection at such a molecular level that i would craft up false realities to live inside just to try to grasp the notion. i have people now. it’s such a weird space to be in, after living the majority of my life singular. sometimes i feel like an imposter– like the real, lonesome me is out there watching through a foggy window. i try not to push people away like i used to, but it’s hard at times. some part of me always thinks I was meant to be alone. it’s an abstruse notion, but it’s like being singular was my struggle– it bread my personality and my art. do i deserve the people i have now? do they even want to be around me? is this all some cruel joke? the thoughts swirl and morph and i spend many moments surrounded by people i love, all while so caught up in my head that i feel alone. that makes me feel selfish or ungrateful. but i suppose it’s hard to accept love and belonging when most of my years were spent without either.
to eighteen year old sara, all you want is freedom. you can taste it, but it’s faint– almost like a concept that you don’t entirely grasp quite yet. i promise that you’ll get out of the town that you felt has kept you hostage. i wish i could warn you that location does not equate to happiness or revelation. your problems will follow you no matter how hard you try to outrun them. i get mad at you, sometimes. you had so much hope for something that would never grant you stability or peace. instead, your idealized vision of the future caused us to run for nearly a decade. that’s alright, though. i understand. you were young and inexperienced, no one told you what to expect. i wish i could. i wish i could have been there to give you advice, to tell you to slow down, to warn you against the chase. i try to do that for others who are your age, now. i only hope that your memory can be an example for them.
to nineteen year old sara, i feel more connected to you than any past versions of myself. i know you’re tired. i know you feel like you’re going to be alone forever. but you’re not, i’m there– i’m watching and laughing and crying with you through our memories. sometimes i wish i could do more. i wish i could snap back to 2012, sit and talk with you for hours. i can’t do that. i can only try to mend you through who we are now. we don’t focus on numbers anymore. i constructed a cage for ana and for the most part we’ve learned to ignore her screaming in our head. i got us out of south city, it was a long journey, but we have a nice house now, and a good job. we have a boyfriend and friends who we adore. people that we never could have imagined back then. these aren’t fictitious renderings of people we constructed to feel less alone. they’re real, they have flaws and quirks and sometimes they drive you absolutely mad. but they’re yours. we did it. i know sometimes it felt like we would never see the other side of twenty-five. we almost didn’t. there were a lot of close calls. but we’re better now, for the most part. i love you so much. i love you more than i love this version of myself because you had it so much harder than i do. i know you’re out there, in some weird time continuum/alternate world that I’ll never have the scientific knowledge to understand. i hope you’re proud of me. i hope you’re still doing the small things that kept us alive. you possess more strength and persistence than you know. i keep you within me forever.
to twenty year old sara, i barely remember you. sometimes i don’t know if you existed at all. we were running for so much of this year that we never got to build any kind of foundation. you cut your hair off and thought a new version of yourself might mend the things that running could not. you pushed away the few people who cared about you and dug yourself a new hole to wallow in. if i could drag you out, i would. but i know it was necessary for our journey for you to exist in the ways that you did. i don’t even recognize you as a part of us anymore– you were so confused, so set on creating a different identity that eradicated who we are. you’re so much closer to peace than you think, but you have to stop running, you have to stop trying to change yourself before you can find it.
to twenty one year old sara, i don’t know where to start. the majority of your existence you genuinely thought you’d figured it out. but we both know that’s not true. you were still running, you just did it in a more confined sense. the house on 24th avenue will try to eat you alive. you have to see the world outside those walls and realize you don’t belong to one space or notion. but because of that, there is no reason to keep moving.
to twenty two year old sara, you were allotted six months of stability that allowed you to rest for the first time in our lives. but i urge you not to make homes out of people. i understand this was the first time you felt you had a foundation stable enough to begin to heal– and you did. and for that i am forever proud of you. but as soon as you felt that foundation cracking, you delved straight back into old habits. you must build that ground on your own, then allow other people to move in.
to twenty three year old sara, you are the reason i’m here today. you put in the work that would set us up for a future that before 23, we never thought possible. thank you. i owe you my life.
to twenty four year old sara, college is not forever and neither is this job. i know you want to run, but we’ve built up a home– it’s warm and it’s safe and even when you feel like you’re living someone else’s life, know that you earned this. you put in the work– we can stay, we can keep building so that it will withstand upcoming storms.
to twenty five year old sara, you’ll meet your best friend before your time is up. it took us two and a half decades but you’ll finally have someone who you truly feel is yours after years of thinking the notion impossible.
to twenty six year old sara, i don’t have enough time away from you to truly reflect on what you’ve done for us. the world was about to turn on its head and we had put in enough time and care to make sure we were safe. i can’t imagine what we would have done had nineteen or twenty year old sara had to traverse this last year. i’m not sure we would have survived. but we’re here. we made it to twenty seven… can you fucking believe it?
Metaphoric Gibberish 