these are my longer pieces of prose which i am calling musings…
but honestly ramblings might be more accurate.
a review of a wonderful play about the difficulties felt during the pandemic and the joy in the small moments of life that we often forget about
i think my pain is like my thumb
i think my pain is like my thumb. now i know that’s a weird statement but stick with me here.
a few weeks ago, i jammed my thumbnail into the fridge, that little soft part between your thumbnail and your skin. i think it’s called the cuticle but i’m not sure. in any case, i smashed that on the edge of our very heavy fridge door. it bled and it hurt but it wasn’t tragic. even as it was all happening it felt like a mistake that i was watching on half-speed. like it was playing out in slow motion. i saw it all but i couldn’t stop it.
afterward, you could see the dark blood trying to clot but failing to do so because of where the injury happened. but eventually, it did and it scabbed and the scab fell off, revealing a dark bruise on my thumbnail below. now, the nail has slowly been growing out and i don’t feel it anymore but the pain is obviously marked on me.
so, i think my pain is like my thumb. a small moment, a jamb in the door, on an edge, where some pain is visible but most is under the surface. the marks of a bruise and blood are there. but the pain is growing out. it’s coming to the surface, slowly. there’s a dent. you can feel it if you brush your fingertips on the nail. there is damage and some of it may even be permanent but that’s okay. it has changed me. that’s undeniable. and it is still changing me. it is still something i am processing and growing with. but i’m glad that it’s growing and not stuck or infected. i am glad that i can see the pain moving, progressing, forward and out.
worth
i’ve realised that nothing worth having comes easily… okay no that’s a lie. maybe it comes easily but it doesn’t stay easily. you have to fight for what you want and be sure with every bone, every nerve and every cell that makes up your body. you have to have the feeling that it is right and if something feels off, then trust that instinct and leave.
don’t ever push something you think is right just because it might be. if it is, it’ll happen. you just have to have faith.
it’s a tricky balance between punching your way through and letting it all calm down and happen in its own time… i’m still trying to figure out how to walk the fine line between trusting my feelings and fighting versus the things that i think are worth my time but are truly just a waste of space in my head and my heart.
forgive but never forget
i have a very hard time letting go of the good and the bad. i feel like that might be the root of all my problems. i can let go of the anger for other people’s actions that … no, i can’t even let go of that. their negative actions made me question my worth and importance. i try to make it seem like it doesn’t affect me and i almost always understand why, but i can’t let it go. it scars me. i forgive but i never forget the cuts left behind. they harden into scars which serve as reminders of my pain.
museums
it’s odd how comfortable the silence and hush of a museum are. you’re looking at something you’re so interested in, as is everyone else. moving in one wave of understanding with absolutely no words necessary. you hear the distant buzz of people and the loud music far away but you’re full of silence and beauty looking at something so absolutely incredible. made by someone else’s hands. a fairy tale
- museums are a collection of humanity and the tales we wish to tell
i do not want to be put on the line to get hurt while you’re wandering around searching
what if you just want to continue looking for the right one and i get stomped along the way? am i just a distraction? you talk about how you’re unsure and yet here you are, lighting up a small flame of hope when i had finally extinguished the flame. is this real or am i just the next game? as much as i know how you think, i also don’t know anything because even i’m not sure.
i mess everything up. if you’re the same then we’ll end up making a mess of each other.
the journey will be beautiful but in the end it’ll just fall apart.
a beautiful mess
one day i took a red string and started tying it up around my room. when i was done, i started staring at it and realised it was my life, a jumbled mess with intricate twists and turns and lines that tangle and overlap. i know it’s my fate, and my life, things i don’t have full control over but that’s just the way it is. if i cut it, if i try to change it to be someone i’m not, it’ll fall apart. some strings can be cut without falling but some are so important to the tangle. the important ones, those strings and twists and connections are what make us who we are. i can’t cut them apart without cutting myself apart.
- red strings
it doesn’t happen often
love doesn’t happen often. if there’s a small chance that you’ve found it and it could be real, it could be exactly what you need and want, take a chance on it. screw whatever past pain or hurt you have because you deserve better. if it doesn’t work out then at least you tried and you’ll never have to ask yourself what if?
trust me, i know from personal experience that what if is the worst question known to man. no one can know what would’ve happened had you done it. it could’ve gone exactly how you planned or nothing like you’d ever expected. you cannot predict life nor people. there’s a thousand factors that affect decisions and life. we cannot control them all. so by that line of thought, anything is possible, including what you hope for.
so go for it. do it now. just make a decision and live by it. you’ll make so many choices in your life. at the end of the day, our decisions are all we have.
repetition
they say that repetition allows something to lose meaning
i can see how that might be true with some things
after a while, sunsets become meaningless, homework becomes tedious, life is just chore after chore, after chore.
it’s all such a bore.
but i cannot see how the constant sound of your soft snores and how tracing galaxies on your back could ever tire me. how could seeing the star-bright shining of your eyes paired with that sweet smile ever stop making me feel as if breathing air is a gift, that feeling anything so deeply is nothing but a miracle?
i can see how moonlit nights and crashing waves are a thing of beauty. that nature chose to put into this tricky thing called life, just like it chose to put you here.
life… is a funny thing. it will fill you with heartbreak, hope, love, euphoria, and sadness. it will hand out war and famine and death and it will stop your breath to the point you never thought smoke would smell sweet. it will make your bones ache from holding the pain of the world up. never stop thinking that each sunset is a reminder of the coming day where you can experience everything and try again and again and again.
experience it all again until you realise that repeating is just repetition if you allow each soft snore to go by with a content sigh at the sight of pure peace that lies before you, if you allow each sunset to blur past without noticing the feeling of bewilderment that washes over you at the reds and purples, streaked with pink, orange and small stains of blue; nature’s colour palette.
i’ll tell my little one that nature painted every star in the night’s sky so they’ll never fear the dark and revel at each night’s new canvas. their eyes will shine with excitement to see what every night has stroked across the sky for them, and they’ll sadden when they hear the tale of the moon and how it gave half its breath to the sun so it could shine but because of that they could never meet again; always missing each other by just a whisper of time. i’ll hold their hand and tell them no matter what life gives out that they never forget that
your shadow is there to remind you that you’re real and that days will pass in repetitions of rising suns and falling moons, of clouds and constellations. it’s just a matter of how you allow the sunsets to sail by, of how you let the war and famine cry for help, life, every day, is a repetition. it’s just a matter of how you let your life repeat.
my heart is muddled with emotions that i cannot yet understand and ones i have yet to decipher
like an enigma that only exposes itself when ready and until then you’re walking through a foggy forest; you can feel the branches and trees and smell the earth and the sun, but you can’t see anything
a letter i never sent
i’m sorry i cannot fix all the pain and the difficulty within your heart. i am sorry you struggle and you feel a lack of ability to breathe and laugh. i wish i could hug the hurt and love the pain away. but darling, only you can fix yourself. so instead, i’ll promise to never leave you, to love you on your darkest days and hug you and listen to your worries, to drive pointlessly around at all hours of the night and feed you when you forget to eat, to take care of you when you don’t think you deserve it. because you deserve all of it.
you deserve the light of the sun and the beams of the moon, your pathway is constantly surrounded by light but your brain is focusing on the darkness. i’ll remind you that you are the light, not the darkness in between those spaces. you deserve to be free and feel without worry of the repercussions, you deserve to follow happiness, whatever that may be.
you deserve to be loved the most that anyone can. i can’t make definitive statements, because nothing is definitive in this life but i can make the promise to try every damn day to do the best i can and to hold your hand and heart throughout all of it. love is a premature word at this point, the kind of love i’m talking about and i don’t want to scare you. but it could be real, i might be feeling it. i’ve never felt it before so i’m not 100% sure here.
but whatever it is, it’s deep and it wants you to be happy and fulfilled and at ease.
i’m sorry I cannot fix all the pain and difficulty within your heart but you are not alone in dealing with it, ever. i cannot fix you but i can hold you while you fix yourself.
mourning
the world is crying, mourning,
over the sad state of affairs on the sphere we live in today;
but once it is done drowning us in agony, the rain, we will realise, was there to wash it all away and help us start anew.
i often wonder if our connection is that of soulmates - almost like the greeks thought of; where people were split in half searching for the other part of them, struggling to feel complete. i don’t buy into the notion that soulmates are only those of a romantic kind. i think that there are many types of soulmates, that our souls are made of stardust and sprinkled into many people who we connect with. some have more of that dust but they also have other types of dust. we are not one thing, one definition. we are all made of contradictions and stories too unbelievable to allow them to define us as simply two halves of a whole.
my life is spread out in so many locations.
my memories aren’t concentrated in one space, but in so many different places.
my first real kiss was in a gazebo in the park, surrounded by thundering rain. my first moment feeling real love happened laying under the centre of the eiffel tower. the day i realised i cared more about being myself than being liked, i was sat upon a bench in central london with my father. the first time i experienced unrequited love as the unrequiter, i was sat by a pond on a bench shaped like a fish. i first felt grief asleep on a beanbag in the living room. loneliness was just a concept until i was consumed by it under the mess of sheets in the space i once called my room.
but i’m sure many have kissed in the gazebo since, others have fallen in love underneath the eiffel tower, revelations and self-awareness have graced the bench , the pond has heard the tales of those destined to fall apart and the beanbag chair is still in the living room. many others have since occupied the space where me and my sheets used to be.
we are here but many came before us and many will come after. it’s naïve to think our experiences are singular but they are infinitesimal and we leave a bit of ourselves behind in every place we feel raw emotion.
a part of me will always be in that pond, and hiding underneath the eiffel tower, dreaming of a kiss in the gazebo under the gaze of the rain.
i am everywhere and i am nowhere. my existence is a contradiction and will continue to be one long after i am no longer here. i am everywhere and nowhere, tangled into the mess of memories of others.
dusk
i don’t know why i find the dusk so compelling. i can’t take my eyes off the sunsets, the signifying ending of something. a moment in time where the day is not over and the night has not begun. the limbo of a time that will never be. i know all moments in time are like that but i don’t think i’m ever as aware of it as i am when the dusk is around me, wrapping me in the warmth of the moment - the clouds are moving slowly, shadows of the passing day. the gradient of colour showing me what is possible. it’s incredible how much can be seen in one space, one place, one moment in time. but if you blink, it’s gone.