My depth is really fucking beautiful. I’m the kind of person who takes walks to get lost in the imagery around me, I do it because even the thought of it sounds sweet and I deserve all of the sweetness this world has to offer. I’ve gone for twenty-seven years and three hundred sixty-four days learning to appreciate the sour. It is in this final hour that I’m choosing to bask in the sun.

Though there are so many battles far from done, I will rest and reflect on the time spent in the last year I’ve been alive.

This year wasn’t about only surviving, which was hard to recognize in the beginning. I excel at romanticizing the bad after it’s over in order to avoid ever having to deal with my feelings. It’s no way to live, but facing realities isn’t a walk in the park either. The latter is healthier, I know this.

Eleven days after my birthday last year, my brother died. We weren’t close, but I was with him during some of his final moments and it was a lot and not a lot at the same time. When I think back on my reaction, the only moments I cried occurred because watching my mom sob over her son was hard to take in. He had lupus and was so thin laying in his bed. In my memory of that night, I still can see him looking so alert and just…aware? He didn’t say anything to my sister and me as we sat on either side of him. He was gone maybe an hour later.

I went out that night and got really messed up. It seems dramatic now, but I can confidently say I wasn’t trying to end the night how I did, in the back of an ambulance because I blacked out while in a club. I took something and drank way too much. I pushed my body to a limit it couldn’t take because I didn’t want to really think about what had happened. I was so thoughtless, but I don’t judge myself for it. If anything, what came out of that night was an extremely solidified friendship. A few of them, time would prove. Jordan, someone who I’d told about my brother’s passing but had only known for maybe six weeks, was there that night and made sure I was safe. She brought me back to her apartment after being discharged from the ER.

The months after that were really lowkey. I didn’t go out, I didn’t do much. I rested a lot. It wasn’t until after the new year, towards late winter and early spring that things began to pick up for me.

I don’t know if I’ve ever written Rainn’s name on my website, but not many folks read this anyway, so I hope she doesn’t mind. We dated last summer and though it wasn’t something that could be romantically sustained for me in the way that I needed, she was and always will be someone I care for and love. Also, I really just wasn’t in a position to be dating anyone. My divorce was finalized a month into her and I dating.

We were in the throws of figuring out our new dynamic when I finally decided that attending the open mic she’d been hosting since October 2021 would be something anyone who cared for her would do. The first show I’d gone to in January had a featured performer, Lex, who was simply the coolest human in the room, with or without their guitar. I also met Jess for the first time. I want to say Dee was at that open mic too. MK and Zaire have only ever missed one Fruit Salad, and that was in March this year. I didn’t officially meet any of these people at that show, but to know that we all existed in the same space so early is really beautiful.

There were initial connections sparked throughout the winter before the April porch hangout happened which, I feel, really launched the forming of what is now the friend group I’m part of. Lou and Mariellen (and yes I mean Mariellen because Mariella was not at the porch hang) were there and I think I met Mags for the first time that night. Following the porch hang was Cal and Fran’s birthday party in Humboldt Park where I met Ilan. The next thing you know, it was Memorial Day weekend. We had a beach day and so fucking many of us showed up.

June was Pride Month and I could spend the entire day giving all of the highlights from that month. Thank god for Instagram memories and posts to refer back to, because it was truly a blur. I don’t have much time to get this out though. I know there aren’t timestamps on these posts, but I do write them in the mornings before I clock in for work, lol.

The rest of the summer was kind of like June, but not as intense. It was packed with friendship and the love that comes with those relationships. I am so grateful. I think if it weren’t for my friends and my therapist, coupled with the general growth I’ve made over the last few years, I’d be really lost trying to search for someone to love me in a romantic way as a means to heal me.

The desire to have someone in my life who loves me in that romantic way still exists for me, though. I can’t act like that isn’t something that would make me feel warm and heard and held in ways I miss so much. I’m more appreciative of the ways I’ve learned to love myself and others, and I want to know what it would look like to love and be loved in a romantic way after having found other kinds of love (platonic and self) to quell some of my intensity. Not that my intensity needs to be quelled!

On that note, I’ve got to peel myself out of bed and begin my day, capitalism is calling. My chest and throat are scratchy and I feel like garbage. I hope it’s one of those 24-hour colds because the idea of being sick on my birthday isn’t the move.

Until next time.