give thanks

dear best friend,

hi 🙂 happy thanksgiving! I hope it’s going well, even for you, you thanksgiving grinch. I’d love to hear about it. this is a post in two parts, and it might be long, so…sorry, but not that sorry. anyway, here goes:

first, I just wanted to share how my thanksgiving went, so here are some key points:

• my 4-year-old third cousin made me play 30-year-old board games with him and inexplicably referred to me as “Mavis”
• I ate five rolls and a disturbingly large amount of pie and I feel kind of gross but honestly it was really good and I don’t regret it as much as I thought I would
• my infamous cousin literally took selfies, scrolled through instagram, and watched skating videos the ENTIRE time and my grandmother (normally the sweetest ever) came up behind me and whispered “WISH SHE’D LOSE THE PHONE” aggressively in my ear
• my infamous aunt was inexplicably nice to me and laughed at my jokes and talked about harry potter with me???
• my grandmother literally called “ANNOUNCEMENT! ANNOUNCEMENT!” until everyone looked at her and then proceeded to announce my average to the entire room
• everyone adored my grandpa, as expected
• while I was in the bathroom I overheard my ENTIRE family discussing my college and career plans (which are nonexistent) without me
• my dress has cutouts on the shoulders and my grandpa told me he was going to staple them closed for me
• my peanut butter pie was gone in approximately 10 seconds

I’m going to text you when I’m done with this – I’d love to hear about yours!

part two is…well, I know this isn’t anything I haven’t said before, but it is thanksgiving, and it seems like a good time to say it all again. I just wanted to say how thankful I am for you. I know I say it all the time, but you can’t possibly imagine how much you mean to me. my life is a billion times better with you in it, and you brighten every single day just by being there. I truly believe that your coming into my life was the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and I wouldn’t be disappointed if it’s the best thing that ever does. you’ve brought an unimaginable amount of joy and love and happiness into my life, something that I honestly never believed I would have. you make me feel like I matter, and you make me feel loved in a way that I never did before and I don’t think I’ll ever feel from someone else. you mean the literal world to me and more. it sounds dramatic but every single day, multiple times a day, I think about you and I’m overwhelmed with gratitude and how incredibly lucky I am to have you. I’ve never loved someone like I love you, and I’ve never been so certain about how I feel about someone. everything has always been complicated–I doubt everything and everyone, except…somehow, I’m sure of us. and I love that. I’ve never been so comfortable with someone, I’ve never shared so much of myself with someone, and I’ve never known someone that makes me feel as at ease as you do. I hope you know that you mean everything to me, and I’d do basically anything for you.

I think the most important thing is…I’ve never known someone who just simply makes me happy like you do. I’m so thankful that I found you and for every day I get to have you in my life.

happy thanksgiving. even if you’re a grinch, I’m still thankful for you.

I love you ❤

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carol of the bells

dear best friend,

hey you 🙂 normally I don’t write posts on days we’ve gotten to hang out together, but I figured I probably should today since it’s kind of been forever. so here are some random thoughts for today:

• thanks for having me over today, I had a great time. I really hope you can stay over saturday because we haven’t had a sleepover in a really long time and I miss it. also I really want to go to that movie with you!!
• am I in trouble with your mom? or if it isn’t me, is there something with my house or my family or something? sorry I don’t mean that to be rude and it’s probably nothing but I’m paranoid and it just seems like maybe there is something since the last couple of times I’ve invited you to stay over or just come over she’s said no.
• for the three-part in our trio, if the last part is the only dissonance, couldn’t you use your original ending notes and just combine that with your new harmony until then? idk if that would actually work, I just remember that your original harmony sounded good at the end.
• apparently my grandmother is denying that she did anything and trying to drag the whole process out as much as she can just to make things as difficult as possible for my grandfather, since she doesn’t have to pay for her own lawyer and she doesn’t have a job so she isn’t missing work, and he does and he is. that’s so messed up.
• I don’t feel like I accurately explained ocd to our friend and I’d like to at some point, I just panicked and I didn’t know how to put any of it into words and I feel like she either a) thinks that I’m crazy or b) didn’t understand even a little about it being a legitimate disorder and not what she thinks it is. so that’s fun. I’ll educate her again at some point if I have the nerve.
• inception is still occupying a solid 44% of my brain and I am frazzled.
• your face when I sang that part of “flashlight” was priceless.
• also, screaming all of our songs was actually really fun and I enjoyed it.
• the title has nothing really to do with anything but it’s stuck in my head.

I love you ❤

count on me

dear best friend,

hi 🙂 I’m currently writing this while our two friends play each other at chess after I’ve already beat each of them twice. it’s very amusing because they’re very, very bad at chess.

I hope your day is going well! I think I’ll text you and ask when I’m done with this post. although you’ll get the text before the post, because I don’t have internet, so I can write this now but I won’t be able to post it until later. anyway. you can distract me from the boredom that is sure to come while we wait an hour doing absolutely nothing between our individual tests and our team competition.

it’s saturday, which means I should write a poem if I feel like it. I’m going to cheat a little because I started this poem yesterday, but I’ll finish it now…or at least stick an ending on it. it’s definitely not finished though. I’m trying to do a little more free verse because I suck at it, so….here is an attempt at free verse.

her world is made of numbers.

they surround her

fill her

bind her

and free her.

they cover her.

they cover everything.

she counts the number of steps she takes,

the number of times her hands touch anything, everything,

the number of taps of her pencil on her desk,

the number of times she checks her alarm clock.

she balances, evens out, and makes symmetrical,

balancing the heavy weight of everything

(and herself)

on a tiny block of determination and fear

knowing that when it breaks,

everything

will shatter.

she counts the hours

the minutes

the seconds

in the day until she can get away

and she pretends it’s because

she doesn’t like school

because that’s easier than explaining.

she counts the moments

between the sent messages and the received ones,

certain that in each moment that passes

is the silent sound of someone she loves

realizing that she isn’t enough.

she counts her flaws,

the words she’s let escape only to wish she’d never spoken at all.

she counts the number of times she’s hurt the people she loves

and the ever-growing number of apologies that will never be enough.

and yet

she counts her scars,

but with them, she counts the number of days she has gotten through,

the marks fading from red to white,

without making new ones.

she counts the times she has loved

and been left alone,

she counts the people she has loved

and lost to fear,

but she also counts the people she has loved

and been loved by in return,

in return,

the number of times she has been sincerely told “I love you,”

the number of times she has lost herself and been found

in the words, the touch, the smile of someone who knows her

and loves her anyway.

when she counts the reasons she isn’t enough–

the reasons to give up–

she counts the reasons to keep going.

she counts the reasons to stay.

because she knows

that she has been saved before

and she knows

that she is loved

and she holds tightly to her last fragment of hope

that one day

numbers will no longer enfold her

and she will let go

close her eyes

and leap

and see

that she could have been

her own savior

all along.

thank you for saving me. like I said…hopefully one day I’ll be able to do the same for myself. and I’ll always do it for you if you need it, of course.

I love you ❤

time gone by

dear best friend,

hello 🙂 I hope your day was all right. you seemed kind of sad or anxious or something so I hope you’re okay, and if you need to talk about anything I’m obviously available.

since it is thursday, i figured i’d do a throwback post, especially since i haven’t done one in a really long time. so here it is:

• when our sophomore friend yelled at me, dead serious, for “language” for saying “fuck” once and then saw someone she didn’t like and said “what the fuck, i swear to fucking jesus if she fucking comes over here i’ll fucking smack her”
• one fake fight and one real one
• our best friend having my yearbook for literally months and not writing in it and then writing one paragraph that was basically “sorry this took so long, you’re really nice and I love you, let’s have a good two years together, p.s. you suck”
• when we learned about jackson (?) hiring and firing people until someone agreed with him because honestly me too
• “there’s a fugitive at our table”
• “query…we’ll leave that one alone”
• all of the jokes during quizzes, my favorites of which were “what happened to the noun? the verbatim” and “aftermath…maddie has her favorite class after math” when I had english after geometry
• my first introduction to [the senior who now has the big solo in our show choir] being her crying on the floor in our freshman homeroom and the spanish teacher being like “yeah, this is pretty normal” (also, I recently found out that that was because of the english research paper which is a huge mood)
• my poetry project prompting serious concern about my health and me regretting everything ever
• me accidentally carrying over “I shishter shwear” into a serious conversation
• when you stayed at my cottage with my grandparents and me and it was honestly lovely
• our best friend auditioning for a solo but consistently refusing to sing one line of coldest winter by herself literally just for us so we could make sure she got her part
• when our best friend broke my leg (it was 110% her fault)
• our global teacher emailing me “Sorry you broke your leg. Here’s this essay, it’s due when you come back.”
• our best friend burping through bohemian rhapsody and interrupting my movie-watching to ask if we had math the next day
• the furry you guys saw and the picture i received of your reactions afterward
• our drunk chaperone
• our best friend claiming she only isn’t doing yearbook because she didn’t get the application in time but a) it was emailed to all of us at the same time and b) I specifically asked her “do you want to do yearbook with us?” and she flat-out said no

so yeah, those are the things that popped into my head, I tried very hard not to repeat stuff (repeat stuff! repeat stuff, repeat stuff!) but I probably did anyway, oops.

I love you ❤

worth it

dear best friend,

hey 🙂 I hope you’re recharging nicely. I assure you that you are indeed a real person. there are few things I’m absolutely sure of, but that’s one of them.

I’m sorry it’s been so long between posts. I intended to write at least once over the weekend and then suddenly it was monday and I hadn’t, and then I would have yesterday but we spent basically the whole day together, so…yeah. sorry, bub.

just a few random thoughts for today:

• I really really really dislike doing terms for history. just thought i’d lead off with that, because…yeah. they’re really gross and i hate them. also, i’m suddenly too lazy to capitalize my “i”s, so dill with it, i guess.
• did you get your report card?
• were you serious about the driving me thing? and did your mom actually agree to that? because that’s really sweet of you and obviously i’d love to see your lovely face in the morning but i don’t want to be a bother and that seems like a fairly sizable inconvenience to you and especially your mom.
• i made up with our friend that wasn’t talking to me, so that’s good. she basically said that she knows she isn’t stupid and that she just means she’s disappointed in her grades or whatever in certain situations, and i said maybe in the future she could explain that because that might solve a lot of minor issues that we all have (aka feeling bad about ourselves because if she’s dumb then what the hell are the rest of us?) and then we both apologized (me for perhaps being a bit too harsh and her for overreacting (her word)) and i think we’re okay now, which is good because fighting was stressing me out.
• i was trying to say this when we were waiting for my dad earlier and i couldn’t seem to make the words come out. but…it’s four years today since a certain person left me. obviously that wasn’t great for my mental state today, since i kept thinking about it and remembering it and spiraling into all of the thoughts and feelings that go along with those memories. but i wanted to tell you that along with all of the shitty feelings that go with that, i also had this overwhelming feeling of gratitude for the life and most importantly the people (most importantly you) that i have now. and…it’s hard to put this into words but I’ll try. obviously her leaving and everything that followed that seriously hurt me and did a lot of damage and generally fucked me up. and it was really really hard, and it still is, honestly. but i guess…i guess i’m sort of a little bit glad it happened, because i needed to get out of that relationship to learn what a real friendship was, even if it didn’t need to happen like that. I’m not glad it happened the way it did because like i said it fucked me up. but i am glad i got out. because when i think about it, if it hadn’t happened, i might never have known how it feels to be truly loved and respected and cared about by a (best) friend. i might have been trapped there, having no idea what i was missing, for god knows how long. and i probably wouldn’t have found you…and i think that all of it, everything i’ve gone through until now, as much as it hurts, is more than worth it to have the life i have now, and get to be with you.❤

I love you ❤

broken

dear best friend,

hi. I hope you had a good day, and I’m really sorry if I brought you down or stopped you from having a good day. ugh. I should probably explain what was happening today…

well, this morning, like I said I woke up and I just…I didn’t feel like I could do it. and by it, I mean leave my house, interact with people, actually do things, any of it. but obviously I didn’t have a choice, so I made myself ask you for a ride because I figured if I had to walk I might just not, so I asked you and then made myself get up when you said you were on the way since I didn’t want to inconvenience you (any more than I already was) by making you wait for me. then I got to school and I remembered I had a shadow, which I was nervous for in the first place but now all I could think was how much pressure that is and how I knew she was going to think I was a loser and also I just didn’t feel ready to have to talk all day but obviously I couldn’t get out of it, so…all day I basically just tried to shove everything down and act okay in front of her. and then when she left I literally couldn’t hold it together anymore.

a couple of things that escalated an already-bad day:

at lunch…I don’t know. for one thing, it literally hurts me to see our friend not eating, and I know you feel the same, probably even more than me. so I felt shitty about that but also because I do that to you guys and I hate that I hurt you like that. and then the conversation turned to our weights and being skinny and all of that and…the only word I can think of is “triggered” but I hope you know I mean it genuinely and not in the “oh my god I’m so triggered” way everyone uses it. I just have been in an especially bad place with myself and my weight and all of that lately and I’ve been trying to ignore it, and then the other day we were talking about you trying to be healthier and all of that and now I’ve been thinking about that a lot too, and everything just kind of short-circuited at lunch today when everyone started talking about that stuff and then our best friend said “says you” and I just felt like a huge hypocrite and generally just disgusting and I started spiraling into “I need to just not say anything ever again” and everything just seemed so overwhelming and I just had to get out. so that’s that. and then I kind of pulled myself together but not really.

and then in history, I left to see my shadow out, and our school president and principal decided to introduce me to the teacher from the other school as a “superstar” and a “star student” and said that I can do anything I want and I just smiled and kept my mouth shut and then I walked away and I just…broke. I’m not a superstar, I can’t do anything I want, I can’t even function and I just feel like such a failure. and you can tell me I’m not but if I can’t be okay in this tiny little wonderful community I live in now I’m never ever going to make it in the real world. and everyone tells me I’m going to do something amazing with my life but honestly I don’t know if I’ll be able to do anything. I’m so so so terrified of the future. and I don’t even know if I’ll be able to have one. and I know you believe in me and it’s appreciated but sometimes it feels like it’s just another person I’m going to let down, you tell me I’m going to do all these things and I don’t know if I’ll do anything, and I’m just so scared. and I’m always shown off by them and my family and everyone and “oh you should be like her” but that’s the last thing anyone should be.

so I was thinking all of that and then I got back to class and you were all working and I literally didn’t know anything. like I’m not saying that to degrade myself, I literally had no idea how to answer anything. and I just felt so stupid and that on top of everything was just too much.

and in general I just feel like I’m just hurting the people I care about the most and I’m just making things worse for them and myself and i need to just stop talking and stop doing things and just get my shit together. idk i feel like I’m letting you all down and I’m just sad for you guys having to deal with me…

and then…I feel like I shouldn’t even say this, but I’m going to anyway. I guess it’s that ever since we had that conversation about dependence and all of that, I’ve been kind of second-guessing…everything. like I’m afraid to even be writing any of this post because I’m not sure if I’m laying too much on you. I just feel like I’m putting a huge burden on all of you guys but especially you and I don’t know what to do. and you tell me that if I don’t like what I’m doing then change it but I don’t know what to change it to. and you mean everything to me but I feel like I’m making everything worse for you. I don’t know what to do.

I don’t know. you don’t need to fix any of this. I do not expect you to try to fix any of it. I’m not throwing all of this at you to make it your problem, it isn’t, and you don’t need to make it. (that’s another thing I’m really scared of lately, you hurting yourself by trying to help me when I just keep laying more and more on you.) I’m starting to think I’m unfixable anyway. but even if I’m not, I’m not asking you to solve anything or even help, I don’t want to put that pressure on you, it’ll only hurt you. I just thought…maybe you’d want to know.

I love you ❤

why

dear best friend,

hey 🙂 it’s wednesday my dood! I hope you had a good day. mine was okay…it probably would have been better if our psych and theology units weren’t what they are, but oh well. I’m ready to go to rehearsal tonight and get told how terrible we are, woooooooooo.

I don’t have that much time because I have to write my stupid essay and then I have rehearsal, but I figured I wouldn’t have time to write anything tomorrow because of the show and then choir, so I wanted to make sure I posted something today. so…I think I’ll just update you on my current family situation if that’s okay.

so my grandmother is still in the hospital, I don’t actually know how long she’ll be there but when she gets out we’re encouraging my grandfather to go live with his brother. obviously any of us would take him in in a heartbeat but he’s all “I’d be imposing” and blah blah blah (which he wouldn’t but that’s how he is) but his brother’s wife (my great-aunt) just passed away almost a year ago so he lives alone now, so we think that would be good for both of them and my grandpa wouldn’t have to feel like he was imposing or whatever. so hopefully that works out.

obviously i’ve had a while to try to sort out how i feel, and….i don’t know. i wrote that poem and that did help me figure it out a little. i guess i’m just…i’m sorry that i never got to really know her. because like i said, she’s basically a stranger to me. and that’s so crazy, like she’s literally my grandmother, and i don’t even know who she is? and it’s made worse i think by how close i am to my other grandmother and what a kind and caring and loving person she is, and how good our relationship is, and then there’s her. and i’m basically the only person she hasn’t been horrible to, except the little kids, and i don’t even know how to feel about that, because i know that her kindness isn’t real, it’s a tool she uses so that we can’t say she never does nice things, but she doesn’t care about me or anyone else. and that hurts. and i guess i just really want to know how she ended up like this, and mostly how someone like her manages to get someone like my grandpa, you know? like he’s kind of an angel, and idk, i just feel so sad for him and for all of them and for my aunt because she trusted my grandma, and she tried to make us believe there was still some good in her and she thought there was, like you could tell she truly believed that she wasn’t just…terrible? and now she doesn’t even have that to hold onto. and i’m sad for all of them and i’m sad for myself that i never got to know her because i know she won’t be in my life anymore and i don’t want her to be, i won’t let her be, i refuse, but i just really really wish it wasn’t like this. and i’m so so so fucking angry with her, too. i don’t understand how you can do something like this to the person who has stayed with you for far too long, catered to your every whim for decades, took care of you through all the pain you put him through, and you do this? how? that’s the worst part of all of this to me. and he acts like he’s fine but he’s been through so much with her and he doesn’t deserve any of it and she just hurt him and hurt him over and over and over and he stayed and suffered and just fucking let her do it and i just hate that we got to this point….i don’t know, i think i stopped making sense a long time ago, but the bottom line is that i’m hurt and sad and angry and i hate that i can’t do anything.

anyway, that was heavy, sorry, but i’m glad i got it out. thank you for listening/reading, i really appreciate it.

I love you! ❤

today 4 u

dear best friend,

hey, you. I hope your day was okay, and I can promise you you’re not a mirage, so that’s good. plus, we don’t have history tomorrow and we do have psych, so tomorrow is almost guaranteed to be a better day.

I don’t really have a topic in mind today, so I think I’ll just say some random things.

• thank you for having me over yesterday. I love just being with you like that and I had a really lovely time. ❤ also, I really like the thing you said about me being your kind of crazy. because we’re definitely both crazy, but you’re definitely my kind of crazy, too. and I love it. 🙂
• I got to page 19 of my (not that short) story today and I’m a little proud but it’s definitely not good and it also doesn’t really make sense. but I’ve never gotten this far in a story before without giving up, so woooo!
• I’m sorry I made you feel bad about your research paper, I didn’t mean to, I was just remembering something that you had said before, but I didn’t mean to actually make you feel bad about it. so I am sorry. I am also sorry for making fun of your thesis, I was just so confused?? but I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings
• I am currently lying on a very prickly rug and color-coding gummy bears, if by chance you were wondering.
• I was thinking about what you said yesterday about me needing a reason for things, and I think that’s definitely true. because when I think about it, even the irrational compulsion things I do, I do for a reason, it just isn’t a reason that makes sense. like, logically, I know that if I don’t check my alarm four or eight times, it won’t have a lasting negative impact on my life. but my brain says, “no, do this or something very very bad will happen.” so there is a reason, just an illogical one. but when I actually think about it, I honestly can’t think of a single thing that I do that doesn’t have a reason. so you’re right.
• this could have been part of the last point, I guess, but oh well. I just wanted to say that I appreciate your analysis. I can’t really say whether it’s healthy or not (although my personal opinion is that it is unless you’re analyzing solely for the purpose of finding a problem for you specifically to fix and then feeling like you failed if you can’t, because then yes that’s unhealthy) but I actually like when you analyze me, both because I’d really like to hear someone’s perspective that’s not mine and because it shows me that you know me well enough and most importantly you care enough to think about me and analyze me. so I really do appreciate it.

I think that’s it? hopefully you enjoyed my random thoughts of the day, and I hope you have a good night.

I love you! ❤

strangers

dear best friend,

hello 🙂 I can’t wait to hang out with you tonight. I hope your party is going well, despite it not being a surprise. I’m sure it’s still just as good. tell your aunt and uncle happy anniversary from me!

today I think I’m going to try to write a poem again. I’m still trying to sort out my feelings about everything that’s going on with my family, so I’m going to try to do it through this. maybe a different approach will help.

this is an open-letter-type poem to my grandmother.

when I was younger, I really just knew

that my life was generally lacking in you

but I didn’t know much about the things that you do

they kept it from me, to protect me, it’s true.

when I got older, I started to see

the reasons you had never been there for me.

I heard of the things that you said and you did

and I couldn’t reconcile them in my head

with the person you had always been towards me

because my whole life you’ve been a stranger to me.

I’ve never known how to act around you

because your kindness to me I know isn’t true.

I know the scars that you left on the people I love

yet I could never seem to just cut you off

so I smiled and pretended I loved you, because

honestly, I didn’t want to believe that it was

true that you didn’t care about me, or anyone

and I’m sure that then, in your mind, you’d won.

but I cannot stand by and be silent anymore

now that you’ve threatened the man I adore

and the only person who took care of you.

truly, I want to know — how could you?

I won’t make-believe and pretend that you care.

as far as I’m concerned, you’re no longer there.

I feel sorry for you and the way that you are

but I won’t let you leave any more scars

on me or the people I love and adore.

this is it. I truly can’t take any more.

you ended it all and I’m saying goodbye,

and the tears that, as I say it, I cry

are mourning the person that I never knew.

because my biggest wish…is that I knew you.

that’s a hot mess. but I needed to get it out. thank you for listening.

I love you! ❤

talk

dear best friend,

hi. again, I’m really sorry it’s been so long. this is probably going to be short so I’m sorry, but I plan on posting something long tomorrow once my head is a little clearer. just a couple of things:

I’m really glad you’re okay, which I know I just texted you but it merits saying again. I know I worry too much (obviously) but I was afraid and worried and all of that so I’m glad it’s okay.

thank you for helping me through last night. I know you probably don’t think you did much but just the fact that you were there and I could tell you and know you weren’t judging me, for how fucked up my family is or for me breaking down, was really really amazing. and, I don’t know, I’m just really grateful that you were there to listen. I’d talk about it but I honestly am still trying to figure out how I feel. I think I’ll write about it tomorrow, or maybe we can talk about it tomorrow night, just once my thoughts might be a little clearer. thank you for being there. it meant so much.

I can’t wait for you to sleep over tomorrow, I’m really looking forward to it. and I promise I’ll try my absolute best not to let my fear of messing up this trio get in the way of just having a lovely time singing and being with you guys.

I’m going into therapy in a minute–my mom is in before me explaining all of the family backstory so I don’t have to–so I think I’ll end this now, although I’ll probably text you when I get out if you’re up for that. talk to you soon!

I love you! ❤

vine of the day: https://youtu.be/iQtClFqmts4