46: I should have texted you when I was concussed π§
maybe we're both howling at the moon πΊ (january 2024)
Iteration #46 of this monthly letter full of feelings.Β This issue's theme is:Β βΎ making space to embrace perceived weakness β½
β΄οΈ βΆ πͺ A Time Traveling Feelings Letter πΈ βΆ β΄οΈ
γ°οΈγ°οΈ marinating on january 2024, sent february 2025 γ°οΈγ°οΈ
I was relieved when the tarot reader said that Iβm not the only one hurting. She said βlook, youβre both the dogs howling at the moon.β
I should have texted you when I was concussed. Now it feels so far away. I should have texted you when I first started missing you again, when I felt that pang replace the frustration and hurt. I guess I thought eventually that maybe you would text me. Maybe you still will. I probably shouldnβt count on something I canβt control.
I have been dreaming inside of your old house. Inside or outside. Every single night, even when when my waking mind thinks I havenβt thought of you in days. Every plot seems to take place in the front yard where we would film short movies. Or the backyard where we used to look for faerie circles. Or the stairs β the stairs that I stumbled up the first time I got drunk. The room at the top of the stairs where I kissed our friend. The room occupied by belongings of siblings that no longer lived there, swords on the walls from stories Iβd be told. The room we used to record hours of inside jokes onto cassette tapes like they were mixtapes dedicated to our inner world. Remember when we were everything to each other?
My therapist called our friendship a romance. He said that usually people grow out of these romances, that our society is built for the privatized intimacy of heteronormative monogamy. Okay, John. He talks about this guttural desire to connect that we feel when weβre young, to be seen and to belong to something. I connect with the feeling deeply and I feel a little punch in the gut hearing him say itβs associated with youth. Staying up late at the sleepover talking, wearing friendship bracelets, bff half hearts, matching halloween costumes, names in each otherβs AIM profile. My brain starts looping about how Iβm insecure, immature, childish βΒ clinging to something I should have grown out of.
He says that maybe the desire gets extinguished by the time we're old enough to find our people, that we just get burnt out and burned by one another. I tell him I donβt feel like Iβve been able to extinguish it. I still want it, even though I find it an embarrassing quality about myself. I feel it all of the time: wanting this intimacy, this whirlwind friendship with all of these inside jokes and deep connections. Look across the room and feel like thatβs your person, thatβs always gonna be your person even when you grow into new lives.
When I try to put this feeling into context within adult life, it sounds impossible; but I see it between people at the weddings I photograph. I see it all the time. Iβm afraid Iβve missed my chance to have that, like it was never meant for rotten little me.
I remember lying in bed for days after my accident, in and out of sleep and jolts of adrenaline when my body remembered the sensation of falling. I wanted so badly to be held without having to fight the feeling of wanting to disappear. Iβd catch myself thinking βwhy am I even still here?β Tommy and Linds were taking care of the car and all of the logistics of getting into an accident, and I was just in bed sleeping and crying for 2 days straight. I felt so stupid and the only thing I wanted more than to be rocked like a baby was for absolutely no one to see me vulnerable.
I knew logically nobody was mad at me for getting into an accident, but I couldnβt help feeling ashamed of it all. I felt stupid and small and heartbroken. In that moment, my impulse was to text you. I almost did, opening my phone instinctually and then realizing the pit in my stomach when your name popped up so easily β the first person Iβd go to text in most circumstances. A name thatβs been in my βfavoritesβ since Iβve had a phone. The same feeling of dread and homesickness lurches up when Iβm asked a security question, trying to get into a locked account: βWhat is the name of your best friend?β I started putting a different name in just to train myself out of thinking about you. I knew reaching out wouldn't get me what i needed, but this childlike instinct to pull you closer was kicking in during this in and out of conscious thought. I made the logical choice to protect myself from the hurt Iβd feel if you didnβt hold me the way I wanted you to. And you wouldnβt; nobody can, exactly. What I really craved was a release of control, a feeling of being cared for completely by someone thatβs not myself; something so hard to feel when my legs are still pulsing with adrenaline and my body still stuck in a state of remembering how it feels to be suspended in time, trapped in a spinning car.
Iβd been trying to train myself not to think of you when I hear the phrase βbest friendβ for a while now. Like Pavlovβs dog with a shock collar on, it takes my mind an extra second to catch on to my first instinct. The words are synonymous with your name in my mind and Iβm desperately trying to train it otherwise. You told me yourself that you couldnβt be that person for me, pointed to others that looked like they could better fill the part. Even if we were still in each otherβs lives, I wasnβt supposed to think of you that way. I relapsed again. I had been doing so well living out my adult life and creating realistic expectations for my friendships, but in september 2020 I was living in my childhood home again. I was surrounded by things that reminded me of who I was when I was closest to her. My body fell back onto familiar urges. Wanting to text her, for her to witness how badly I didnβt want to exist anymore. Aching for her to see the weight of the depression, lying in the grass under the swingset we used to sit on for hours. I thought about our trip to NYC when we were teenagers. Standing on the rooftop after getting locked out of the hotel room sharing secrets, I felt high off of us. I remember feeling it all of the time before I even knew what drunk felt like. You know that euphoria after staying up late when youβre young and giddy? We told each other how we felt pulled to the edge as if we were sharing the names of our crushes. I remember that night feeling like a moment I wanted to keep in a locket.
Out at another friendβs birthday a few years later, I noticed myself feeling jealous of a stranger sitting on the other side of you. I was right next to the person who had been my social life raft for so long, but now it felt like I couldnβt hold your attention. I remember my stomach sinking, thinking about how much I took for granted all of the times when it was just you and me in a room, nothing beyond the walls of our laughter. I craved laughing with you like that again, I craved an inside joke at anyoneβs expense. I felt ashamed; I thought I had βhealedβ from this level of codependency. I wanted to feel high again. You took a hit from a stranger in the back of the bar as we were trying to leave. I rushed to find a second location that would keep you from going home, googling βchill wine bar not crowdedβ near me.
On the last day of January, I got a tarot reading from a new friend and then she gave me a tattoo. We talked about perceived weakness and strength in vulnerability. I had been telling this story to myself about what would have happened if I had texted you then, in my moment of weakness. I thought that I needed to stay strong and not let anything penetrate the carefully constructed boundaries Iβd built to protect myself. Keep moving forward, not back, etc. etc., always forgetting that I donβt believe in linear progress and always being slapped in the space by the reality of a spiral. Not believing in the binary but always getting stuck in the well-worn pathways. I talk about control a lot in therapy βΒ does releasing the urge to control the situation mean not reaching out at all? Or does it mean not trying to control my impulses when I have a moment of what seems like weakness?
When I turned 33, another new friend gave me a birthday reading. She pulled cards for each category of life, and when she got to friendship I bristled. I canβt even remember what the card was, but I remember her saying something about new friendships blooming; how this year of my life would be all about new potential for the kinds of friendships I had been wanting. In a moment that my younger self wouldnβt even dare fantasize about, she confessed that she hopes sheβs one of those friends. How lucky am I?
I was relieved that the friendship card wasnβt about her, the big friendship, the security question, the best friend forever since 4th grade. Before I had time to even feel the relief, a wave of sadness pushed in β reminding me that this was actually about moving on, about grieving. When she asked if I needed more clarity, she pulled the moon. She said we were the dogs, both howling at the moon; both feeling this grief. Itβs been on repeat in my mind ever since: weβre both howling at the moon. The moon is a card about embracing confusion, darkness, anxiety and shadow. Gleaning messages from the subconscious. The tide coming in and out, bringing in new truths. The gift of not knowing.
Going through photos from January on my phone, Iβm reminded of sweet small moments. I go out on walks in the snow with new friends Iβve met in my new town. We make snow angels and we giggle in a way that isnβt loaded at all. I think about friends Iβve made on the internet, friends I became closer to when we cocooned indoors. I text them a long babbling thought and they tell me that they see me. I look for an email from you and I find my own ramblings about the 8 of swords pulled during an artist group zoom. βI love that about you,β Shawna says to me, single-handedly rewiring parts of my brain that were taught to hate myself. Jordan texts me: βBig sleepover energy, big loves, big hugs! Picture me with my eyes closed, goofy grin, and holding y'all close!β I try to remember that itβs okay if you want to get married without me. The things we always imagined doing together never happened anyway. We only ever lived together for that one short summer and we never painted the walls gold like one scene in Bridge to Terabithia we watched from the corner of your bed. I can see myself in your full-length closet door mirrors in the memory. Mirrors we took angsty self portraits with on my dadβs old camera, scribbling incorrect lyrics to emo songs onto our arms. The same mirrors that keep showing up in my dreams, catching against the purple rug underneath as we try to close them.
an instagram post that amanda shared with me that says βif softness were weakness, the flowers would never grow.β βΆ an instagram post that says βthank you for being exactly who you are and for offering me a friendship iβve wanted and needed my whole lifeβ βΆ yet one more instagram post that says βIβm not the same as I was / you wouldnβt recognise meβ βΆ a screenshot of a conversation with cecilia that shows me sending a photo of holding space with a pink wall with the text πΈ loweβs pro πΈ to which they respond βbro that is the shade of pinky of my big boy heart
β° If you'd like to read previous newsletters, they are archived here.Β