i think a lot about different things and i always have but now it is different because maybe now i can afford to be okay with the life i have built for myself.. and i can afford love and happiness. which is weird because i never thought i would have to spend in exchange for something like that, and i never thought these relationships would be transactional. and i always told myself they never were.

i did not expect to work on myself this year as much as i did, and inevitably it was because i was entirely miserable and hopless, shameful and muddled with everything bad, but maybe now i want to get into writing again, and the older me will be content with what i have done with myself. i don't think i should owe myself anything but it is the least i can do.

looking around, i have given it in me to accept the people who hold me close and now i too wish to hold them the same way, huddled and sharing warmth. i think about all those times i no longer saw you, wishing i did. i think about the smell of damp denim and the sandy towel wrapped around my frigid body, hair hinted with the alpine lake. i am as vulnerable as you were, except you were never there. i spent the past few months making something out of myself and you are nowhere to be found, so maybe this was for the better. i did not think you were deserving of anyone such as me. and i think about the gentle laughter surrounding me, and it could have been you. later i look at the stars, not sober at all, in the warmth of everyone else and i wish i didn't push you away at all. i have it in me now and maybe i should have been greedier.