1) I keep telling people that when I lived in San Francisco it felt like I was on antidepressants. Never feeling too high or too low, just a sort of constant, that I honestly probably really needed at the time. I never wanted to kill myself when I lived in California, even when my insomnia was at its peak, sleeping 2 hours a night for weeks.
Coming back to the east coast, to New York, everything feels sharper, things seem clearer (lol like I got a new glasses prescription). It feels like when I first moved to Toronto, but a little different because obviously I’ve grown, and and my feelings are more mature than they were at 16, but I can already start to feel the extremes.
2) 16살 때처럼 새로운 도시로 이사했지만 이번에는 엄마가 준 목걸이를 하고 다녀.
3) He was the same but different, less hazy more in focus, not as soft—harder? more solid? The best way I can describe it is that in all my memories of him in San Francisco he had golden hair and golden eyes, now I can see that he has dark brown hair and hazel eyes. Even the way we interacted seemed different, not as light, weightier? more tangible? I don’t know if he noticed, or if it was just me. Or maybe he just doesn’t give a fuck about me anymore hahaha.
4) For a few years, I spent a lot of time chasing a certain ideal way to be all the time. I wanted to be happy all the time, I wanted to feel stable all the time. Which is probably fine for most people, but I think it sedated me a little bit, and also made me feel like I wasn’t living up to this self imposed ideal.
I am a very emotional person. I feel things A LOT, and I hated that about myself for a long time. But I’ve learned to embrace them, because after all my emotions shape who I am, and they truly do make me feel alive. I feel like my time in San Francisco made me mature without (too much) emotional volatility, so now I can face these extremes again…hopefully in a different way, a better way?
5) I used to love like water, let the waves crash over me as I swam in circles, fighting the current just so I could stay off land. I thought it was fate but I was just drowning. When the sunlight glints off Manhattan skyscrapers as it sets, that’s how I feel about you. Inhaling cold crisp air back into my lungs, I thought I needed destiny, I just need you me.