the threads that bind us are deep crimson, like blood

the yearning and the want knows no bounds

for someone who spends as much time with herself as i do, i have no idea what it is to live by myself. sure, i know how to be by myself and stay in the company of my thoughts. but i do not know how to live without anyone but myself. i often feel like the second choice, even to myself so i am no stranger to feeling like the second, third, or the last choice on a daily basis. to me, it is a privilege to be the first person to cross someone’s mind when they are looking for company. looking for a presence. looking to be a person to make it all easier.

i have been thinking about someone. far more than i should have been. he might read this, though i don’t think he would. ishi told me that maybe i liked him. vani agreed, and she said maybe he liked me too. i tried to convince myself i did, but it didn’t sit quite right with me. like wasn’t the word i would have used for him. for i’m not sure if i really liked him. he was too obnoxious for me to be comfortable with, he was too rude for me to talk to but he saw right through me every time. his honesty was so brutal that it cut more than it fixed, and maybe i hoped that i could be more like him, so i could stop getting cut while fixing everything i think i could. he never really talked to me though, for me to be considering if i should talk to him or not. we have known each other for years, even though we barely know each other, yet we never really stopped to even consider if a friendship was on the table to be formed. it wasn’t that he wasn’t available, because he was. just not for me.

years ago, i had been thinking about someone. far more than i should have. he might read this someday, but again, i don’t think he would. he was all the same things and i asked myself if i liked him. i don’t think i did. he was never available for me to know him and if i didn’t even know him, how could i have liked him? who would i have even liked?

i think about how friendships work. i think i have gotten the hang of it sometimes. i know people, and i exhaust myself trying to be a nice person. i think i forget that i have my own ideas and morals to live by when i try my best fitting into everyone else’s notion of a “nice person.” i believe that if i say no, i become a bitch, and so i say yes to every little favour anyone asks from me and i believe that if i ask someone for the smallest thing, they will hate me. so i go on with my life trying to do everything by myself so i am agreeable enough for everyone around me. if i do everything right, if i never say no and if i never ask for anything, i could finally get everyone to like me, right? if i am never a burden and agree to bear everyone else’s, they might think i am worth their time.

i spoke to devi, ended up crying on the phone asking her why he would be friends with someone i know would not tolerate the bare minimum, but not think i am worth even just the bare minimum that i ask for. why he would decide that i do not deserve his time and his effort and why i end up being the only one that keeps initiating, never knowing if i will finally get what i desperately hope for or if it is going to end in heartbreak. i feel so fragile, like someone could say one wrong word to me and the shattered pieces of my heart that i have hurriedly put together would fall apart again. every time i have something just remotely nice happen to me, even if i worked my days and nights for it, exhausted myself and lost myself for it, i feel horridly anxious, afraid that someone will decide that i do not deserve it, and they will take it away from me. worse, i feel like they would give it to someone who is nicer, prettier and better mannered and more hardworking, and that no matter what i do, i will never be enough or deserving. devika told me that maybe he doesn’t care about me not because of something i lack, but because the other person may have something he needs. maybe he craves from the others the validation i crave from him. maybe he puts in the effort to convince himself that he deserves them. it doesn’t pull me out of it. i know she is right. i can see it. but i continue to feel horrible because when will i be enough and worth it for someone? i want to count my blessings and i want to tell myself that i have had so many wins that are well deserved. but i am also the kid who scored all As, but everytime i didn’t get the perfect score, i would get told that i was capable of it and had the potential to be perfect, i just had to do more things right. so the word potential made its way into my mind and decided to never leave, and now whenever i get one thing right, i look at more things that i should be getting right instead of celebrating a win. what a stupid brain.

older siblings complain about how their parents never allowed them to do what they wanted to when they were younger, but their younger siblings get to live life not on a loose leash, but without one. i have a relationship with my parents that i will not be dissecting here, but as much as i relate to how parents grow so much chiller with younger siblings, allowing them to do as they wish, i notice how they have grown much easier with me too. maybe it is because i am older and hopefully wiser now. or maybe they just decided it was time for change and they were tired of being strict. maybe they decided that you just do what you are meant to do. but as much as i am in acceptance of the change, i also cannot help being just a little bit hurt that it didn’t come when i wanted it so much. and i wonder if this is how things will always be. sure, i am tougher, but i am also tired. i am not jealous, merely hurt that i was not thought deserving enough for change. and then i find myself romanticising everything and everyone i could, and waiting and hoping for changes that will never come upon.

some things reminds me of eleanor’s relationship with her mother in the good place. how she watches her mother be present for patricia, someone who isn’t even her daughter, after being absent for all of eleanor’s childhood. and how she is happy for patricia, but it also breaks her heart that if patricia could get the mother that she wanted to have, then it meant that she was always capable of change, but eleanor just wasn’t worth changing for. it is not an exaggeration when i say it changed my brain chemistry just a bit. i watch my friends be available for someone that doesn’t care about them while i am here to catch them when they inevitably fall and it breaks my heart a little. i watch others take for granted what i have been wanting, working and praying for, and it leaves me with a sadness so profound that i don’t know what to do with it.

ashi wrote that writing is not natural for her, and i had to pause (dramatically). if writing is not natural for her, then breathing is not natural for me. i look at everyone who has ever attempted to wring any art they can out of themselves and i watch them feel so detached from something so authentic that they created, for they believe they lack the eloquence, and i think about the funny nature of it. maybe eloquence is not something that is belonged, but fleetingly possessed. and the moment one decides to give voice to their mind and their memories, it chooses to be possessed by the manifestation of their deepest thoughts and desires. and what a beautiful sight it is to have your soul bared open and the for the ghost of all things true to mould it into art.