warm
I had a dream about one of my best friends growing up last night. we were at this big river spring, around all these other people from our schooldays, and I defended her from this girl who was mean to her in college. I woke up feeling really happy, mournful. sometimes I go find all my school-time friends' old instagram pages and scroll endlessly through sepia filters and scene hair, looking for I don't know what.
wish I was better at keeping in touch, I think. friendship has been on the mind. while I don't want to discount my best efforts/frail attempts at communication, I do think about my tendency to trudge endlessly forward, leaving behind what my feet have passed over or wandered away from, for better or worse.
I think at times this has served me in leaving people who did not show me love. but I also think I have a bad habit of leaving behind who gave love to me at my root, or at least, keeping them/memory to bounce around in my brain, never bringing it out for actual interaction. does that make sense?
this website makes me think a lot about that friend I dreamed of. I think she was my real first best friend, and to be still be in my life! how lucky am I!!! but I'm ashamed that the title of best-friend is so distant for us, not because of a lack of tenderness, it's just kind of fogged over with distance.... we made a website together when we were 10, chloeandgrace.com!!!! I think of chloe, and all my other friends from childhood, and I get that sick crying feeling and sappy tenderness, its this insane level of love, so distinct from the love I have for people I met later in my life. just to have been a witness to the core of who I am and where I'm from and to have been dear to me when I was just a little kid figuring it out. I love you more than you can imagine for that. I still talk to a few of these friends and it's always like no time went by. there are a few others where that gap feels like more of a canyon, and sending a message would be like flinging my phone off a cliff I think, for some reason.
it's moments like this that I wish I wasn't so far away or self-absorbed or afraid. I wish I could gather all of them up and say, lets go to the beach and have a day, and catch up for hours and hours. even the old friends I may anxiously avoid if I see them across the grocery store now. I wish I could gather them up in my arms. friendship is this funny thing and even when I think I have it figured out I keep getting surprised. I messaged my dream friend and it felt like we were laughing two feet away from each other. I'm imagining her here in my gallery and going through my day with me. I imagine a future where we text each other every day and play video games together.
I think soon we will see each other and my heart is aching. fall comes and I feel it all again! the crunchy leaves and fresh waxed floor, big oak tree, the bump in the concrete, the chain link fence. my sister holds her babies and they're going to walk up and down the same street I did my whole childhood. that really all happened and it wasn't a dream. tender feelings really settle me down, I can finally breathe when I think about it. my friends from then and now who are far away. I miss you and I love you all and nothing that has happened before now matters!!!!! I think playing night in the woods hacked my brain and reminded me of my little hometown and all I love from there.
on a much less serious note, why does my brain only work when I have had so much caffeine I feel I must vomit? is this the price I pay for functioning like a normal human? thoughts and prayers welcome. thank you and good evening!