The Other Side of Them

"Sometimes you get so close to someone you end up on the other side of them"

 - Richard Silken

    Have you ever ended up on the other side?

    Almost every day, I dream of a timeline that does not exist. 

    "Do you think her and I will ever be friends again?"

    "I don't know, I think it might be time to..."

    "Let go?"

    "Yeah."

    Of course I have often heard of friendships ending, best friendships. But that wasn't me. That wasn't us. No, our 7 year long friendship had already stood the test of time. We love each other, isn't that enough? 

    Clearly not. What is love when there's no trust, when there's betrayal, when there's resentment and hurt. I'm sure we have all heard or lived this story. After all, it's a very old story. 

    Things are simple when youthful in the way that there's a person you can talk to anything about. In the way that it's you and your best friend against the world. Every thought and feeling is on the table. Trust flows like water.

    Then, there are hard subjects. There's the subtle hurt of them being friends with someone that hurt you. Now, it's not like you're in it alone, but then, you're not exactly in it together either. 

    I have a friend of many years who is a Christian. While I am not that, it generally doesn't cause too much strain on our relationship, except for that one small thing where I am a queer person and he thinks that homosexuality is a sin. 

    Is that enough to tear a friendship apart? I suppose it hasn't so far, although no feelings have been particularly spared during conversations about the subject. 

    At the end of the day, it's whether the friendship is worth fighting for. Whether it's worth it. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't. The sucky part is, in order to stay friends, you have to both agree. She didn't think it was worth it, clearly. And maybe I don't think so either. 

    At the end of the day, who am I even longing to be friends with? The girl she was years ago? The girl she is now, who I've never met? I suppose you grow together or you grow apart, and we grew apart. 

    But it was so worth it to me. I would've done anything, I would've fought 'til the end. I did fight 'til the end. Still, at the end of the day, I view her life through Instagram stories and anecdotes from the mutual friend we share custody of. 

    Sometimes, it does happen to you. Sometimes your friendship falls apart in a friendship split more heartbreaking than any romance you have ever endured. 

    And then, I suppose you make new friends. Or something, I'm not sure. I haven't yet gotten to the part where I don't feel a pit in my stomach when I hear her name.

    

    Love and loss,

                Secret

A Room of Secret's Own (I got an A on this essay)

         

College. The ideal time and place to reinvent myself. More accurately, it is the time to continue inventing myself without the shadow of my past. Without the history of how others have perceived me and the weight of living up to that perception. For the first time in my life, I get to actually forge who I want to be. The real question is whether I’m deciding who I am, or discovering it. 

Leaving my past behind was not easy though. In the words of Satrapi, “Nothing is worse than saying goodbye. It’s a little like dying”(Persepolis). Previously a house of six, now a house of five. Five people who, honestly, deserved better. My brother, a college dropout. My sister, trying to figure out her ambition while sharing a room with her boyfriend. My parents, disabled and trying to provide for my family. In a lot of ways I felt like I didn’t deserve to be the one to leave. The youngest, the baby of the family, the brat. 

And yet I did. Leave, I mean. And as Chappel Roan’s “Love Me Anyway” played, I drove away in the car I helped my parents buy (with my dad in the passenger seat and my mom in the back because she isn’t allowed to sit in the front when I’m driving because she starts freaking out), and I left my siblings in the rear-view mirror. I tried to leave the guilt behind too. It didn’t work. 

So, there I ended up. In college. A scholarship baby with nothing but forced ambition and dread. A computer science major with a lot to prove. Thus beginning my journey as a female computer science major surrounded by men. My relationship with myself in regards to men has fluctuated so much this quarter. My biggest issue was my constant urge to act a certain way in front of men. I felt like I needed a certain level of male validation. It was so strange to me because I felt like I had gotten so far in high school with my self worth and my relationship with men. I felt like I had “served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size” (A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf) and then all of a sudden I was taken back in time to the very beginning. In other words, I felt like all the progress I had made was suddenly deleted. I was fighting between who I wanted to be (and generally thought I was) and who I felt like the world wanted me to be. 

Reading ‘A Room of One’s Own’ gave me a lot of perspective. Importantly, it gave me inspiration. A reminder of the things I believed in. As much as I left my past in the dust as I drove away from my home, it was still helpful to look through that rearview mirror into the past and remember who I used to be, because in a lot of ways that girl is still me. So I remembered the things I feel strongly about. Feminism. Writing. Those two things combined in a genre mix of creative and intellectual genius. I could only dream of creating something similar. And while I didn’t always agree with the things she said, I agreed with who she was. What she represented.  A strong woman who can write what she believes in. That’s who I want to be. And thus, my identity developed a little further. 

Still I didn’t know who I was. Still I couldn’t figure out who I wanted to be. In a lot of ways, I felt like my identity was based on what I told people about myself. I say I’m a writer so I’m a writer. But I would still be a writer if I didn’t tell people I was. So am I what I think about myself? Because I definitely think a lot of pretty insane things about myself that I at least hope aren’t true. Am I my feelings? In that case I’m melodramatic and that’s about it. This all goes to say that I still had a long way to go in the identity department.

I try to understand who I am through writing and it only confuses me further. I pull everything I have and I put it on the page. I might as well slit my wrist and let it drip onto the paper. “This is the sacrifice that the act of creation requires, a blood sacrifice. For only through the body, through the pulling of flesh, can the human soul be transformed” (La Frontera, Anzaldua). Anzaldua’s work was confounding. She spoke of a culture that I wish I could connect to but never grew up with. She spoke of the magic and the power within women, within queer people, within those who had been othered. I wanted to believe her but I was so afraid. Afraid that connection with my spirituality meant I was crazy. It was almost like I couldn’t shake that feeling – the feeling that I only was who I told people I was. So if I am spiritual, am I really that if I don’t tell people I am? If I tell people, what would they think? This struggle begins a contradiction in the belief that I held. I can’t only be what I tell people I am. Which means I’m more than that. A comforting thought, really. 

Writing. Identity through writing. But what is my identity? What am I ‘allowed’ to write about? I’m brought back to a moment in class; we’re talking about intersectionality in the media. ‘Intersectionality Wars’. The intersection of identities, and the things that apply to only those intersections, the place where roads cross. We don’t want empty representation of minorities, there needs to be something behind them. More specifically, a minority behind them, behind the camera, telling that story. So then, am I only to tell stories about my identity? What is my identity? Is every character supposed to be me? How am I supposed to write what I know when I don’t know anything? 

So I write struggle. Art imitates life and life imitates art. I write about insane situations and then accidentally find myself in them. I write to find myself and I build myself from my writings. Unfortunately, I can’t do that all the time. I’m still in college.

In college, it feels like the weight of the world is on my shoulders. I have this crazy full ride scholarship from a man who died and left a will for poor kids with high merit to go to college. So basically, this man’s spirit is watching me and waiting for me to do something with his life. And more tangibly, this man’s family has met me, knows my name, and is waiting for me to do something with my life. And here I am, crumbling under the weight of my learning disability and my ‘gifted kid burnout’. While what? While people suffer under much greater debts? While my past self goes through trauma after trauma? She could survive, why can’t I? And then I read ‘A Man’s Search for Meaning’ by Victor Frankl. “Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little”. And so I learn something once again. This book isn’t just about how finding light in the dark is possible even in the worst of situations. It’s about how suffering is meaningful even when it is small. It’s about how saving yourself from drowning in five feet of water is sometimes just as hard as saving yourself from drowning in twelve feet of water. 

So I take a deep breath. I remind myself what I believe in. I’m passionate about politics, I’m passionate about learning. I’m trying my best to be hard working. Sure, I have something to prove. Sure, I have a complex that my life is maybe more important than it really is. But I have something. I have a dream. I am confused all the time. But at the end of the day, I can describe myself in one word. Writer. A writer of stories, of poetry, of journal entries, of my life. “So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say” (A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf).

Or, to quote Anne Lamott quoting someone in Bird by Bird, "It's not like you don't have a choice, because you do -- you can either write or kill yourself."

Love,

    Cat

Is This Fiction?

     The jawbone sits on my windowsill. I’m not sure why I picked it up, or why I was even in the forest that day. All I know is that I did pick it up, and I put it in my pocket as if it was a secret. I didn’t let anyone know that it was in there and then when I came home I delicately placed it by the window, as if I wanted it to be able to have a nice view. I cracked open the window for it to get some air. I didn’t wash my hands after even though I should’ve because I wanted the feeling of the bones I picked up to linger on my skin. I wanted to touch my face with the jawbone. Some of the teeth were still attached.

I stare at it sometimes and I wonder who it used to be. I wonder how long it had been there before I picked it up and I wonder what it means that I wanted it so bad. 

I often daydream about such things. I want the jawbone to be alive. I want to go into nature and free bleed into the water on a full moon. I want to squeeze water from moss and drink it. 

I often feel like there’s something missing in my life. I want to know where my blood came from, I want to go to those people. My blood is in so many places, it’s in Arizona, it’s in Mexico, it’s in Ireland. Ireland is so cold and I wonder if it even wants my blood there. My hair is so curly. 

I picked up a book the other day about spirits. I started reading it and I really liked it but I got upset when I found out a man wrote it. Not because I hate men (although sometimes I do), but because sometimes, to me, it feels that men don’t have a place in the Craft. 

I know that this is not true, but it feels true. A man sits there with nothing in his womb, no creation. He does not bleed into the earth. He is not connected to the moon. 

Maybe he is connected to something else, something I’m not supposed to know. Maybe that is the point. 

I know that biology is not all that I am but I want to go and bloom like a flower in the soil. I want to sit under the stars and know that they are seeing me like I’m seeing them. I want to taste the Earth, I want to be dirty. I want to understand the Mother and feel her cradle me in her arms. I want to touch my face with the jawbone I found in a rotting carcass on the ground. 

I often wonder which one is real. By that I mean, there are so many religions and a million deities and they all think that they are right. Is a God just as fallible as a man? Is God a man? (No.) If there was one true God, She would be a Woman because in her womb would be the Earth. 

But there is no one true God. There is just the Earth, the Mother, and the spirits that men apparently get to write about, some of which live in jawbones in carcasses in the soil and then on windowsills. 

They say to never accept a gift from a Faerie, but I didn’t say thank you. I took it like it was mine, like it belonged to me. And now it does but it doesn’t. And I don’t belong to myself but I do belong to the Earth.

Love,

    Secret

Dream Again

             I work so hard during the day to prove myself but at night I dream of a love so pure and strong that it is humble. I picture a life of writing and I get a feeling in my chest like stepping out of an airport into Syracuse, New York. Like the smell of petrichor after it rains when the sidewalk is crisp and you can hear water droplets dripping from trees, and the world is clean. 

Recently it’s felt as if I am living the wrong life. I pretend I don’t need to write like I pretend I don’t need to eat, to sleep, to breathe. I pretend I don’t need to live in order to survive. And I can survive like that for a while but it doesn’t mean that’s who I am. 

The question of who I am has weighed heavily on me lately. I can’t think about the future without thinking about the past because time is a circle and I exist in the center. I think of my younger selves as past lives and I think of my ancestors as past selves. I forever live in the shadows and sunlight of rich cultures I’ve never known but that exist under my skin. I’m trapped and enriched by the dichotomies of the lives that I’ve lived which I don’t remember and the people I’ve been who follow me around. I never know if I’m making any sense at all.

Love,

    Secret

Horses

   

What does it mean to dream of horses? 

    Ever since watching an episode of Bridgerton many months ago, I have had an obsession with horses. I've dreamt of them (notable instances include one where the horses mane was flames). I've yearned for them, as if my chest was pulling me towards the experience. 

    The experience I crave is this: 

    Bareback. Galloping like the wind through open fields, hair blowing in the breeze. The hooves on the ground making an earthquake-esque rumble. 

    The thing is, I've ridden a horse like one time, and it was walking, and I was about 10 years old. I think if I tried to achieve my dream, I would probably fall off and severely injure myself. 

    Can't you picture it, though? The freedom, the whimsy? 

    The part of this worth analyzing is not whether or not I'd be able to ride a horse in the way I dream. It's more about why I want to. What does this represent? 

    No saddle. Danger? No, not that. Connection to the natural world? I tend to be drawn towards experiences untainted by human innovation, for better or for worse. The knowledge I don't need anything but my own abilities to ride this horse. That the horse is just as free as I am, that we are one with each other. 

    Then, the speed. As close to flying as I could imagine getting without wings. The feeling of reckless abandon. The knowledge that no one could follow me. 

    The open field. Possibility. There's woods at the end, beckoning me to adventure, but for now I can see all and I know all. There's no one here but me and my stallion. 

    Have you ever had such a desire? To have such a connection to a creature. A bond where you are better together, where you're involved in the tango of life in such an invigorating way. I want it so bad. 

    In case you were curious, the Bridgerton scene that prompted this was one of the scenes where Kate Sharma is riding and I just found that so inspiring. 

    I was learning how to drive a manual truck yesterday, and the trucks name was Mustang, so perhaps I got a taste of what I'm craving. We definitely had a bond, Mustang and I. 

    My biggest struggle was successfully getting the car moving again after stopping. I couldn't figure out the timing of releasing the clutch and pressing the gas, so I kept stalling. At one point, sat in a dark parking lot, I closed my eyes and meditated with Mustang. I connected with the purr of the engine, tried to feel it rumble through my legs and up to my chest and heart. Then, I opened my eyes, took my foot off the breaks, and drove. I succeeded. 

    Later, I sat through 3 green lights as I tried and failed to get the car started again. We win some nad we lose some. 

Love, 

           Secret

Lost

    

Have you ever felt so lost and confused that you don't even know which way is up? 

    Months ago, I was in such a state of misdirection and distress. I didn't know who I was, who I wanted to be. I felt like I had never been so clueless in my life. I ended things with the love in my life, I failed a class, et cetera. I was drowning and I didn't know where the surface was. 

    So, I got on antidepressants. For the best, I suppose. And school ended, summer kicked in, and I got thrown into the insane summer itinerary I had planned for myself. Little time to feel depressed, lots of time to make money and learn new things and let myself get taken away by a whirlwind of movement. 

    Now, I'm sitting in my bed. I have a flight on Tuesday for the last excursion on my list. 

    I'm getting that lost feeling again. 

    It's so all consuming that it's very difficult to have any sort of idea how to move forward. I'm on a pretty significant dose of Wellbutrin, and my distress is magnified by the fact that my medication should be working but I still feel this way. 

    It could be the fact that it's 11 pm as I write this and maybe I need some sleep. Still, the feeling is so interesting. 

    Tears bite at my eyes but I'm so locked in my head that I don't even feel sad. My body is experiencing emotion but my consciousness is not attached to it. 

    I can sense all of my emotions existing under the surface, but as I try to look at them I'm obstructed by a thick film of contortion and all I can see are vague shapes and colors, if that. 

    I've reached a certain point in life where the answers do not appear in front of me anymore. Up until this point, there was always a right thing to do, I just had to find it. Do the logical thing. Do the thing that you know will be good for you. 

    Now, there's too many options and I don't know myself well enough to know what the future holds. Is my major the right choice for my life? How do I not even know what sort of jobs I want to have when I grow up. 

    When I was young I was such a dreamer. I knew in my heart that I would be successful. I felt so strongly that I would make it and do great things. 

    Now, I'm seeing my future as a bit more up to interpretation. 

    Free will is scaring me. I don't want to be in control. 

    I could fuck up everything and no one would stop me. I could become corrupt. I could cut off my whole family. I could make wrong choice after wrong choice and be none the wiser. 

    I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I'm scared, I'm confused. 

    It's occurred to me over these past months that there is no right answer. No one out there knows my life better than I do and is waiting there with the answer to my questions. The only person that can decide what's right for me is me. 

    So, anyways, I got back with my ex a couple weeks ago. Maybe that was the right choice, maybe not. Who's to say. 

Love, 

     Secret 

Pretend

     Do you ever wonder what your life would be like if you took a different path? If you were a different person walking? 

I often feel a spark when I watch a particularly evocative movie or read a particularly whimsical book. I think about what would have happened if I was just a bit smarter, a bit more curious. If I had honed different skills. If I had been bestowed with a different assortment of mental illnesses. 

Much like other people, fickleness holds me in its heavy arms and no matter how I try to fight, I can’t escape. No matter how often I think it’s so sure – this one, this time, will stick. It never does. I suppose the one thing that has stuck is writing, but with no official pigment or canvas. Blogs come and go, novels come and go, poetry gets hidden away. What’s really the point of it all?

I always thought writing was the least cool hobby. I wanted my calling to be painting, or music, or ballet. While I did end up finding passion in dance, and I do love all of those other artistic things, those are just affairs. My one true love will always be writing. Those are the cards I have been dealt. 

Some nights, I play pretend. I’m someone else. This person is maybe me, but a different me. Some nights I straighten my hair and wear long pretty night gowns and sit in my bed humming and pretend I’m a main character in a 90s movie. Whether this can be considered self care or self avoidance is up to interpretation.

In high school I used to wear vintage dresses and float around my town in the middle of the night pretending to be a ghost. I would walk to the graveyard and take in the night and the rush of it all. I tried to do that again one time in my first year of college and was immediately terrified by the knowledge that my town is, in fact, not very safe and I am, in fact, a young girl. I suppose my brain has developed a little bit in that time.

I straightened my hair yesterday and I've been playing pretend ever since. I search for the person I am when my hair is straight, who is she? How is she different from who I usually am?

I spent a long time deciding my outfit this morning, which I usually do, but this time it was for different reasons. What is a "straight hair outfit"? To me, every outfit is a curly outfit but which ones work with my hair straight?

It's interesting to see the correlation between my hair and my identity. I feel unrecognizable. I look almost identical to my older sister, who's hair is naturally straight.

I'm not really sure what I'm getting at with all of this. Do you feel like your hair connects with your identity? What do you do when you look in the mirror and don't recognize the person staring back at you?

The most interesting part is that when I look at myself in the mirror I feel so young. I look at my face and it makes me feel like a child. That leads to another question; is my hair also a representation of my growth? Does straightening it take away the age I have acquired? They say hair holds memories, but who's to say.

Love,

  Secret

P.S. I accidentally signed my real name there at first #awkward