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I'm staring at my profile picture on Facebook with the kind of nostalgia that is usually reserved for things that have already ended. It's a picture of Max and I, I'm sitting on his shoulders and smiling with a sense that the camera is picking up on my smile but also on my happiness. It was taken a few days before I left for California. An hour before, Max and I had been at a wine bar in Hampden, smiling and staring at each other and letting the world know that we were in love and we were taking on this thing called life, together.
My mom had needed us to pose for pictures so she could practice for this wedding she was shooting, and, wanting some nice pictures of Max and I before I left to be thousands of miles away, I was extremely happy to oblige. In between photos, Max and I kissed and talked about how sweaty we were in the summery golden hour of July, and we truly believed that the way we were feeling right then would never be changed, would never be different. When you feel so strongly about someone that you know they're going to say I love you before they've even said it, you feel like nothing in the world can change you.
In the airport, I got more teary-eyed than he did, although he had already cried quite a bit in front of me when we said our first round of goodbyes in my bedroom, and he was staying strong because it would have been too embarrassing to cry in front of my family. He didn't want me to carry my bags until I went through security and absolutely had to, and he held my hand and promised me that I was doing the right thing and made me feel so confident in us, him and I, together, that I felt strong enough to get on the plane.
It's amazing how a place really can change you. Well, maybe not a place, but an experience in a location different from where you're used to. I remember, distinctly, powerfully, the feelings I had for Max that night when he hugged me because I was afraid I was pregnant and my mom couldn't support an abortion because keeping a baby is the whole reason I'm in her life in the first place. I remember the sparks and the butterflies I would get when he kissed me or held my hand and I remember that night when we went to Stoney River and I barely ate my potatoes au gratin because we were too busy reminiscing on our time together and falling in love with the sight of each other all over again. It hurts to remember how easy it was, how easy everything felt, how comfortable I was falling asleep with my head against the window even though the drive back to my house was less than an hour.
We had a couple of conversations that hurt so much but somehow still ended well--what had happened to the girl he had fallen in love with and wanted to spend every second with in Dewey? I don't know what happened to her, because even though I still feel like her sometimes I don't feel like her all the time and so I know exactly what he was talking about. But somehow, despite all my own confusion, he came to a conclusion on his own--I'm happy here. I have more to be happy here about than I did while I was at home, and so it's more than just him that can make me happy here. That's a confusing sentence. But when I'm in San Francisco, I'm not waiting around for him to text me back, driving my little cousins to Walgreens and sometimes not venturing any farther than a two minute drive from my house to the gas station. Sometimes I wish with everything I have that I could be happy like other people, move into an apartment with Max and know that my life was falling into place in a way that feels stable and simple and still like everything that I want.
But I know that for me, for now, what's right is what feels so apparently wrong--taking space and time and feeling the epicenter of one's early 20s; it's confusion and stress and hurt and happiness and freedom. It's having conversations with my mom on the phone for hours at a time and still feeling like I haven't been honest enough with her, it's being licked on the hand by three different dogs all on one serving shift, it's drinking and going to Urban Putt with so many different people that my memories of the place blur together in a way that's kind of nice, and it's the unfortunate thing that I and all humans seem do: dragging people into their own confusions and emotions and asking for space when all I really want is to be pulled closer. And it's leaving at 9:30 in the morning and sitting in this place down the street with an acai smoothie and reading emails and not being sure about how I feel.
Now's my time to be selfish, right? I just wish it wasn't both so easy and so hard at the same time, to do what I want despite what other people think and feel about me.
My mom had needed us to pose for pictures so she could practice for this wedding she was shooting, and, wanting some nice pictures of Max and I before I left to be thousands of miles away, I was extremely happy to oblige. In between photos, Max and I kissed and talked about how sweaty we were in the summery golden hour of July, and we truly believed that the way we were feeling right then would never be changed, would never be different. When you feel so strongly about someone that you know they're going to say I love you before they've even said it, you feel like nothing in the world can change you.
In the airport, I got more teary-eyed than he did, although he had already cried quite a bit in front of me when we said our first round of goodbyes in my bedroom, and he was staying strong because it would have been too embarrassing to cry in front of my family. He didn't want me to carry my bags until I went through security and absolutely had to, and he held my hand and promised me that I was doing the right thing and made me feel so confident in us, him and I, together, that I felt strong enough to get on the plane.
It's amazing how a place really can change you. Well, maybe not a place, but an experience in a location different from where you're used to. I remember, distinctly, powerfully, the feelings I had for Max that night when he hugged me because I was afraid I was pregnant and my mom couldn't support an abortion because keeping a baby is the whole reason I'm in her life in the first place. I remember the sparks and the butterflies I would get when he kissed me or held my hand and I remember that night when we went to Stoney River and I barely ate my potatoes au gratin because we were too busy reminiscing on our time together and falling in love with the sight of each other all over again. It hurts to remember how easy it was, how easy everything felt, how comfortable I was falling asleep with my head against the window even though the drive back to my house was less than an hour.
We had a couple of conversations that hurt so much but somehow still ended well--what had happened to the girl he had fallen in love with and wanted to spend every second with in Dewey? I don't know what happened to her, because even though I still feel like her sometimes I don't feel like her all the time and so I know exactly what he was talking about. But somehow, despite all my own confusion, he came to a conclusion on his own--I'm happy here. I have more to be happy here about than I did while I was at home, and so it's more than just him that can make me happy here. That's a confusing sentence. But when I'm in San Francisco, I'm not waiting around for him to text me back, driving my little cousins to Walgreens and sometimes not venturing any farther than a two minute drive from my house to the gas station. Sometimes I wish with everything I have that I could be happy like other people, move into an apartment with Max and know that my life was falling into place in a way that feels stable and simple and still like everything that I want.
But I know that for me, for now, what's right is what feels so apparently wrong--taking space and time and feeling the epicenter of one's early 20s; it's confusion and stress and hurt and happiness and freedom. It's having conversations with my mom on the phone for hours at a time and still feeling like I haven't been honest enough with her, it's being licked on the hand by three different dogs all on one serving shift, it's drinking and going to Urban Putt with so many different people that my memories of the place blur together in a way that's kind of nice, and it's the unfortunate thing that I and all humans seem do: dragging people into their own confusions and emotions and asking for space when all I really want is to be pulled closer. And it's leaving at 9:30 in the morning and sitting in this place down the street with an acai smoothie and reading emails and not being sure about how I feel.
Now's my time to be selfish, right? I just wish it wasn't both so easy and so hard at the same time, to do what I want despite what other people think and feel about me.
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