black flies

i’m sitting in bed, hoping that i can fall asleep quickly because i need to wake up early for class tomorrow. not that it differs from every other morning, but i feel urgent right now. i need the sleep.

and it comes to me.

in a rush of thoughts and slow, fat tears streaming down my face. the urge to write comes to me in this same way often, actually… embarrassingly… in a very real way.

i can’t stop thinking about this person that i am in love with. i’ve cultivated them in my imagination. not exactly in physical looks, i have no idea what they look like, nor do i care. but i’ve created this person in feelings and smiles. i can feel their arms around me, and i can hear them speak. i think of this person, and i feel full.

because… i don’t know. i’m a little crazy? i’m slightly obsessed with the idea of finding a person that makes me whole despite my unwavering efforts to fulfill myself by myself? i’m a champion at run-on sentences?

i’m not creating an unrealistic person that will never disappoint me. i want the disappointment. i want the fights and the passion. i crave the frustration. because, to me, these things surrounded by love and laughter mean that it’s worth it. that the love is worth it. that i am worth it.

~*~

“tell me i’m worth it,” i said, laying in bed. a hot tear rolled down my face. my jaw was tight, i could feel every inch of my throat drying while i waited for you to respond to me.

“you’re worth it.”

i knew i pressured you to tell me that you loved me, but i didn’t care. i needed your lies to make me feel whole again. without them, i wasn’t just missing pieces. i felt completely empty. i craved your attention with relentless energy. the rest of me felt constantly tired, but the promise of you gave me so much hope.

i wanted someone that looked at me like i was magic.

you aren’t them. as badly as i wanted you to be, you just aren’t.

~*~

“why don’t you date a woman?” my mom is sitting across from me. i look at my sister.

“i’ve thought about it,” i say. “but i really just don’t think i’m interested in women. i don’t think i’d enjoy the sex.”

“that’s understandable,” my sister says. i think she’s holding in a shutter. i’m guessing a gay person might see this as the true sign of a straight person. then i think that if i were gay or bi or curious in any way, i would probably be able to identify the true signs of a straight person.

then i wonder why i’m so boring.

~*~

i keep seeing these quotes on pinterest. i call them “sad girl quotes.” they’re things that i think women save and look at to remind themselves that they are special.

i fucking love them.

i see one, and i think, “this is about me,” or “this perfectly sums up my relationship with xxx.”

it amazes me how words work. carefully placed next to or near one another. they say so much, sometime with very little and other times with a lot.  

reading beautiful things makes me happy that i am a person that feels too much to hold inside because who would i be if i wasn’t me? it makes me happy that i can’t fall asleep until i’ve carefully arranged all of my thoughts into words for my brain to understand because who would i be if i wasn’t me? it makes me happy that they often come to me, hand-in-hand, with tears… because who would i be if i wasn’t me?

who would i be?

nobody likes valentine's day

i hate valentine’s day. i’m pretty sure i’ve almost always hated valentine’s day, and if i ever did, even remotely, enjoy valentine’s day it was probably because of the snacks. i even hate valentine’s day more than i hate christmas, and the only reason christmas wins is because christmas always brings more finger food to the party.

the only time i really enjoyed valentine’s day was this one time in middle school when a boy i liked handmade a card for me that i may or may not still have.

but besides the times with snacks and the one time in middle school, i basically have always hated valentine’s day.

i’m not romantic. in fact, i kind of hate romance even more than i hate valentines day. it’s never felt very organic to me. the thought of someone saying something romantic in my ear makes me so uncomfortable; i’d rather go to the dentist than go on a fancy date.

for the most part, human contact makes me cringe. unless i really love someone and i want them to touch me, every second of unwanted contact makes my skin itch. my body is such a private thing that i love and take care of, that i don’t want someone touching it unless they ask permission or i invite them in.

but valentine’s day this year is really scary to me.

because it’s another new milestone for me. my first valentine’s day as a single adult.

valentine’s day was never a day full of fancy dinners and outfits and chocolate. it was a day of whispered “i love yous” in long distance conversations and a bouquet of daisies and baby’s breath with a note about how much valentine’s day sucked, but i didn’t. there might be a nice dinner, but it was clouded with sweatshirts and wellies and a weekend expiration.

it’s just a weird thought, to be alone on a day when the rest of the world is holding on to each other.

last year i was laying around my apartment when i heard my phone ping. a valentine’s day proposition i should have said no to, that i instead said yes to. i ended up reading patti smith at my favorite bar because, despite dating three to four men every few weeks for the last three months, i thought the bar tender was the most consistent and supportive man in my life at the time. he deserved my silent company and my tips.

my phone pinged again. a second proposition. i was waiting for this bicycle messenger i really liked to ping my phone and then maybe ping me, but all of my backups were calling in their backup, and my phone sounded like it was on a countdown to implode.

so i said yes to the one backup that i thought was most likely to turn into something more, the one that i had hoped might ask me to be his girlfriend if i could trick him into falling in love with me.

the night ended with free drinks and not enough of my book read. i think it says something when you’d rather read a book and pay for your own drinks then choke down awkward conversation in exchange for free whiskey.

and as scared as i am to spend this valentine’s day as a real, true, in the flesh single person, i am glad that i’m not the same scared girl i was last year. a girl who was so scared to be alone that she sacrificed her time to be with someone that made her feel less than she should.

what you could

about this time last year, i started seeing a guy. he was the first guy i took interest in after the end of my nearly three year long relationship a few months before. he was older, quite smart, and funny. i felt comfortable around him immediately, like i had known him much longer and like we didn’t meet online.

our first date lasted hours longer than the others i’d been on. we drank whiskey and made jokes at my favorite bar. it was obvious that the night had to end when we both started holding in our yawns. he said he didn’t want to go, and i didn’t either.

outside, he insisted on walking me to my apartment. i insisted he not. i was a little embarrassed that i lived on campus, but i was more embarrassed that a group of eighteen year olds from my floor were smoking outside of the building. i didn’t want the doorman to see. i didn’t want my roommates to walk by on their way to the laundry room. a few kids in my classes lived in my building, and i didn’t want them to see. i didn’t want anyone to see me on a date. it felt invasive to the perfect little bubble we'd cultivated for the two of us in those few hours.

we fought back and forth about him walking me to the door, and we finally settled that he wouldn’t. i’d won.

i told him i wanted him to kiss me. i’d won that, too.

i saw him a few days later at a bar with some of my friends. i ordered pbr, and he did the same. i put my hand on his knee, and he put his hand on mine. he gave me butterflies.

on our second date, we went for dinner. he made me a drink and played music beforehand at his apartment, which i investigated thoroughly with apprehension. he didn’t have a table, but he had a plant and candles. i felt like i’d been staying the night there for months.

while i feel that all of this background information is necessary, it isn’t the focus of the story. the focus of the story is the music. the music he played when i came over that night and all of the nights after that.

he had a playlist of music he played when i came over. as a joke, and then a serious, we called it the “maggie’s coming over” playlist.

“play my playlist,” i’d say while i brushed my teeth or my hair in his bathroom. “play my favorite song,” i’d say, giving him two guesses to choose.

he’d make me tea, luke warm and barely steeped. we’d share clementines and kisses and lay on his living room rug listening to my playlist.

when we stopped seeing each other, i was devastated. i was still raw from my last breakup, and the sting of another failed relationship was difficult. i romanticized him and the short time we spent together until i drove myself completely insane.

our “maggie’s coming over” playlist became the repeated anthem of our breakup, if you could even call it a breakup.

last week i saw wet play live at schubas tavern. wet was all over the playlist. i’m not sure how he discovered them, or when he originally started playing them for me, but i loved them. i still love them.

it’s weird. last year at schubas i had a pretty enlightening experience about a guy i’d been sleeping with and the guy i wish i was still sleeping with instead. seeing lucy rose and crying in public was a religious experience for me.

seeing wet in person was another religious experience, totally and completely. it’s amazing how you can feel so many things from a past period of time, all at once.

i was immediately brought back to his apartment. i could distinctly remember what the inside of his freezer looked like, and the drawer that he threw all of his beer bottle caps into, and the smell of the hand soap in his bathroom. i could remember how it felt to wake up in the morning and feel his arms around me, exactly where they were when we fell asleep… like nothing had changed in the night.

and i remembered what it felt like to have him stop responding. i can hear the phone going to voicemail, always premature. i can see the blank screen on my phone as i check it every five minutes, hoping he would text me. i hear his voice, telling me he wasn't ready for something serious.

and i could see myself, covered in water, holding my breath in the bathtub, opening and closing my eyes through the water, wondering if there would be a day that i wouldn’t hate myself for loving someone who didn’t love me back.

“i believe that you did what you could, you gave what you could, and you loved how you could.”

sea of love

it was 80 degrees a little over a week ago. for one quick, sunny day it was 80 degrees.

i woke up around 6 a.m. two friday mornings ago, and i couldn’t get back to sleep. the sun was shining, and i woke up extremely happy. it was one of those mornings you just want to roll around in bed, messing everything up until it becomes a nest you can't get yourself out of.

i spent what seemed like hours on a stuffed, delayed red line. i was sweaty and a little hazy. i could smell red wine from the night before in my sweat. every time the train doors opened, the entire train seemed to exhale in relief.

it’s so funny how people react to weather. when it’s cold, we want it hot. but the second it warms up enough to make us sweat, we’re begging like babies for a 50 degree day.

i came home to a sleeping apartment. i like being the only person awake in my apartment. with open windows, the whole place smelled like spring.

when lara woke up, we decided to spend the day walking around. it was nice enough for short sleeves with pants.

she dragged me into GNC, which is one of my least favorite places. the (only) best part about GNC is the arnold schwarzenegger protein powder. it’s going to pahmp you up.

there was a blind man in the check out line in front of us. he turned and asked us for help signing his receipt because the cashier was on the phone. i walked up to him and helped him put pen to paper.

“you have such a bright spirit,” he said. who doesn’t love to hear that? especially from someone who has no idea what i look like on the outside. he can’t see the hair that i styled or the eyelashes i painted with mascara for five minutes this morning.

the next things he said, i don’t exactly remember. but the thing i do remember is that he said, “in order to love other people, you must first love yourself.”

now, lots of people have said that to me. i get it. well, i don’t exactly get it, but i get where they’re coming from. they have context. they know me. they read the blog. blah, blah, blah.

but who is this random stranger telling me to love myself?

i keep my religious and spiritual feelings to myself because they are mine to have. i wouldn’t say i am religious in a traditional sense, and my yoga practice has a lot of influence on the way i think about spirituality.

but it feels a little like someone meant for me to help that man in that GNC on the best day (weather wise) of the year.

especially considering that i decided to give up dating for lent.

usually every year, i give up sweets (because i love fruity gummies) and then i challenge myself to do something every day to make me better. one year i gave a sincere compliment to at least one person a day, another year i made sure to smile at anyone i made eye contact with, and last year i told myself once nice thing about me every day.

this year, i gave up dating.

which made lots of people laugh, but i wasn’t really sure why.

i think that i have come to a time where i am actually, honestly, truly okay with being myself. …and being by myself.

internet, it only took me nine months to get here.

and so, on easter eve, to celebrate 40 days of self-induced singledom, we drank, and we danced, and we ate pancakes.

at a gay bar. surrounded by dancing bunnies and drag queens. it wasn’t exactly the morning i thought i would spend in church, but i left the club feeling so full of love and happiness.

side note: the club that we went to seemed to be very popular with the hispanic gay community. the dj spoke only in spanish, the drag queens spoke only in spanish, they played only spanish music, and we had no idea what was going on the entire time.

but we danced, and we hugged, and we laughed just the same. just the same.

i love you, chicago.

it’s a little funny to me that i started this blog to write about my life in chicago, but i don’t really write about chicago too much. there are no pictures of my apartment, no words about my classes, nothing mentioning much of a social life. i’m not sure why that is.

when i walk down the streets, i rarely listen to music. i feel so annoying saying this, but there is a constant dialogue running in my head. i think about things i want to write about, or what i should have said to that rude man that cat-called a friend and i during our nightly run. i think about the guy i saw for a split second on the train. i was sure we held each other’s gaze a bit longer than what is customary. i think we fell in love for that split second before he stepped off the train.

and the funny thing about that is that i fall in love multiple times a day. more times a day than i have fingers to count them on. i fall in love with the woman that sits at the front desk of my building. i fall in love with babies wrapped in snowsuits, nestled in blankets, hiding in strollers. i fall in love with the bus that is always sitting outside. i fall in love with the walk sign on the corner of my block that i usually ignore. i fall in love with frank, the perfect miniature golden doodle puppy i see weekly (if i’m lucky). i fall in love and plan a hasty destination marriage with at least five strangers every day. i fall in love with the smell of panera bread bagels that fill the street at 11pm every night as i walk home. i am in love with sketchy alley #1 and creepy alley #2 that i pass multiple times a day. (they are hardly sketchy or creepy, mom).

i think that the reason i don’t really write about chicago, or what is going on, or what is new and what is cool is because this place feels like home to me. i feel, that for the first time ever in my life, i really belong somewhere. does this sound corny? because i know it is a bit corny. but i don’t think i’ve ever really fit in anywhere else. sure, i fit in with people. i have always had friends. but how do you know you fit in somewhere, really?

when you know you could be happy living somewhere without having (m)any friends.

and that is how i feel about you, chicago. i really, really like ya. i might even go as far as saying that i’ve fallen madly in love with you. 

i found this buried deep in a series of folders on my computer. i'm not exactly sure when i wrote it, but i fell in love with it, and chicago, all over again.