the thing about 2am

The thing about 2am is that it tends to stir up really complicated emotions which I do not have names for. I was driving home from Provo for the last time in a long time last night (uh, morning, whatever), and it began again. Saying goodbye is kind of the most painful weird beautiful misunderstood thing, which I think we should start dubbing an emotion. Like we should say "I am feeling very goodbye-ish right now" which can mean, "I am feeling very sad but also all the love I have for every person in my life is exploding out of me like a nebula collapsing in on itself dO YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN."

So I wrote this, and I hope it makes you feel some type of way. The type of way that gets you thinking about who you would miss if you had to say goodbye to them, and then maybe you should tell that person how much you realllyyyy love them right now, instead of waiting. DO NOT WAIT. Ugh.

Maybe all I need right now is some peanut butter crunch. Maybe all I need is for someone to say to me, “You don’t have to try so hard.” Stop trying so hard to claw your way into things, things that aren’t for you. I try to hard to make the puzzle pieces fit where they can’t, and won’t, and it’s causing me grief. It’s making me wake up in the night thinking “You are not a puzzle piece.”

I had the experience the other night of feeling the need to cry so strongly that I practically vomited. And I was like “Yes. I am finally a woman now.” But to be truthful, I did not particularly relish getting into my car at 11:35pm on a Friday night on the street where two of my best friends live and driving away from them, and crying so much that I wished my eyes had windshield wipers. I shook my fist at my heart, which was, ironically, closing up like a fist. I am in a war. My heart is making war on every part of me that needs to leave, that has to let go, and I must do this soon, because I don’t know how things will go if I let my heart stay here.

Well. I know how things will go.

I’ll wake up that morning with lead in my chest. I will close my eyes against the feeling of leaving, and then I will get into my car and leave. Because that’s what grown-ups do. That’s what we do! We have to wring out the emotions, just temporarily, so we can get through. Through the tunnel of ridiculous discomfort that is leaving one’s comfort zone. And then at the end of the tunnel, the heart is just a muscle. It just pumps blood. That’s it’s one job.

But see, I know myself. I know that I won’t do that. I’ll drag it out for an interminably and excruciatingly long time and that’s how I will say goodbye, with tooth and nail, with eyes wide open and falling headfirst into my grief and excitement. I know that’s what I will do, and that means crying so hard that I have to pull over to the side of the road. The conclusion is that it’s hard to love people. I know that it’s supposed to be worth it, and it is, but it’s also incredibly difficult, for someone who wears their heart like a tattoo, someone like me.

I am going to write letters. I’m going to write letters that say,

“I miss you so much that it hurts

It feels cold, like a shockwave, like getting shoved.

I feel weak, like I’m not supposed to miss anybody

This much.

I want to shake an 8-ball, shake it a

million times

And ask

“is this okay? is this okay? is this okay?”