The Experience of Life and Death

I remember my first run in with death.

I was 4 years old. My family had a guinea pig named Buddy. One day, I came home from preschool after catching a ride with my babysitter. It was raining, as it usually seems to be doing on days with such significance as this. My brother was already home from middle school, and when my mom let me in the front door of the house, I saw him crying on the stairs.

I was too young to understand at that point. But I knew that Buddy was gone.

When I was seven, I'd grown up enough to understand that experience and understand that in a house such as mine, where we had so many animals, and so many lives to look after and consider, that this would be a natural progression. Animals died. However, I did not understand what it meant when my dad told me that my grandmother had had to put her dog, a little Chihuahua, to sleep.

Two months later, I asked my mom if he'd woken up yet. All she could do was stare at me, looking as if she was either going to cry or burst out into tears.

I understood it's meaning at age 9 when my family came home from brunch at the IHOP to discover that my dog Sheba, the one who had guarded me in my bedroom the first five years of my life when I slept each night, had defecated all around the house and was now lying unconscious on the kitchen tile. We put her to sleep too, only to end the misery that would have come if we'd allowed to her live her natural remaining days.

That same year, my grandmother died, a victim of a poor heart. It was a Wednesday. Ironically enough, the Monday just before, she had gone to the doctor and had been deemed healthy. When she left the car that day, I didn't realize that that would be the last time I would ever see her. I didn't understand the fact that my selfish childhood ways, in which I didn't want to spend time with her because I didn't understand the difference and significance of age, that my resilience to not give her a hug would haunt me for the rest of my life.

We didn't find her until Friday.

It wasn't a surprise at age 14 when my dog, who'd been taken to my house as a puppy just a month after I was born, died while my family was on vacation in Disney World.

I'd seen it coming a long time coming.

Around age 15 death was something that surrounded me almost constantly. It is around this age when these newfound teenagers begin to question their existence. And once downtrodden by life, having someone find something wrong in everything they do, to find themselves stressed, a line of explosives down their body, and the slightest wrong movement will make them explode. At age 15, my best friend of the time and I shared something very deep in common. We felt worthless, as if life was at its end and there was no use.

I contemplated my death each day, wondering how I'd go. On one occasion, maybe twice, I'd tried to end it then and there. I welcomed death.

She did too. And she almost didn't survive. Neither of us did. But we made it.

But at age 15, my grandmother, who'd been ill for years, was reaching her final moments. I got the phone call right after class that she was sitting in a hospital room in Nevada, each of her organs killing itself one by one. And while I wanted nothing more for my own life to end, I did not want this. It was a time when I still believed in God. And so I prayed for her life.

She survived.

I survived.

But death didn't leave me. It became a fact of life. At age 17, almost 18, that same grandmother finally passed. She was cremated and her ashes brought back to Arizona. That was the first time I'd seen heppa, as we spread them. Heppa, an almost daily conversation topic of mine now due to work. Heppa, all of life and what made a person in some grayish substance lighter than sand.

At age 18, my dad died. We'd had 2 days notice but it wasn't enough. It's never enough. We rushed to the hospice and made it moments after his passing. He was gone. I cried and cried for 2 hours that day.

I haven't shed another tear since.

At age almost 20 now, I still question this idea of mortality. I work at a Haunted Mansion, a place where death is a commonplace fact, whether it be for show or not. It happens. It's a fact of life in which I have accepted. I still contemplate my own life at times, but unlike age 15, I do not wish it to end, rather to know what it will bring to me.

There's something beautiful in this idea of darkness. I believe in the beauty of darkness. Not just of death, but of things as a whole. I do not fantasize death. No.

But I still ponder.

It's a fact of life I've learned to accept.

People tend to confuse this with my personality. They seem to think that because I am of this mindset, I am automatically deemed to be depressing. Depression was something I battled, and let me tell you, this is nothing like it. Despite this being my interest, I'm still a happy personality. I laugh, and I smile, and I enjoy life.

I've come too close to death for me to not enjoy life.

I try to take risks, and go out of my way to make others happy. Yes, admittedly, I'm not Little Miss Sunshine all the time. I find that fake and I have great respect for those who can genuinely be 100% that all the time. As for myself, I'd rather be one hundred percent me.

I am a happy person. But maybe my definition of happiness is different from others. I am happy in the fact that I love my family, I love my friends, I love my job, I'm surviving life, I'm on my own, I'm free to make my own decisions, and have a life worth living. It makes me happy to watch movies by Tim Burton, to look through creepy photos on Tumblr of the darker aspects of life, to watch horrifying TV shows and sit on the edge of my seat, and to enjoy playfully scaring at work.

I am happy.

I have come to understand that life ends at some point, whether we want it to or not. Whether we understand it's definition or significance or not. Whether or not we're ready for it or if the people in our lives are ready for it. It ends. And I'd rather accept that fact, and die knowing that I did what made me happiest in my lifetime.

So if what makes me happy is different than what makes you happy, then so be it.

But don't go around thinking I'm not happy.

Because in truth I'm probably the happiest sadistic person you'll ever know.

And I'm ok with that.

Passion

Are there just certain things that just all of a sudden pop into your life and inspire you so much?

Can I have you folks do me a favor?

Can you watch this? Maybe not even just watch. But listen. At least listen to this before you continue reading.

Listen to the way the narrator speaks, in conjunction with the music.

Isn't it gorgeous?

I watched this for the first time last night and was immediately in awe. Absolute and complete awe. Not necessarily because of the subject matter, but by the way that the narrator uses and speaks these words.

To this day.

So much power. So much force. And, you know, the subject is true as well. Relatable. Believable. True.

This is what I want to be like.

The way that the narrator speaks is the way that I want to write. I want to control my words and give them as much effect and power as he does. I want people to go through all these ranges of emotions, from the early effects of innocence, to soon feeling the pain, the trials, the suffering, and finally to feel the inspiration and rising of spirits within themselves.

I have the power to create power.

For the first time in my life I feel like I'm good enough for something.

Somehow this is beginning to relate back to that clip. For years of my early life, I was happy. But the first time I was called fat, that was it for me. I wasn't good enough for anything. For baseball, for dancing, for acting... Even to this day I'm not of the belief I'm pretty enough for anything, especially a relationship.

To this day, I still have given up all hope on these things, even if not willingly. 

I gave up on sports.

I gave up on dancing.

Most of all, I gave up on my love of acting.

I'm breaking the cycle though. I refuse to give up on this now. I'm good enough to write. I'm good enough for my job now. I like what I do and they make me legitimately happy.

My writing style is changing lately. Maybe it's the fact that I'm older, more mature. Maybe the fact that the majority of what I'm writing lately is actually creative nonfiction. The fact that I'm a bit more hardened by life. That I've changed.

And I want to write like this. To evoke the emotion of passion. That's what that feeling really is. Passion, which everyone has. Passion is my passion.

I dunno.

But my writing is different.

And it's starting to get noticed. Rather than giving you some form of a creative muse tonight, all I want to really do is thank you.

I want to thank those of you who are reading, whether we talk or not. I want to thank those of you who have stepped out of their ways to tell me how much they enjoy my writing. I want to thank everyone.

See, with restarting this, I've realized the passion that I have for writing. Over the past couple years or so, with my lack of inspiration amongst other things, I've forgotten why I even bother with writing. But then when you read these things, you remind me why. You remind me what it is that I truly want to do with my life.

I want to write.

I love my job at Disney. I would be content doing this for the rest of my life. Really and truly. But there's something about writing.

I have passion.

And passion is something of worth.

Friend Zoned

We have a lot of friends in our lives. Hell, nowadays, if someone isn't our mortal enemy, then they're our friend. And there's a lot of types of friends.

Best friends.

Old friends.

Facebook friends.

Friends.

Friends with benefits.

Platonic friends.

More than friends.

Mutual friends.

"Just friends".

Close friends.

Forced friends.

The list goes on. On one hand I can list the number of best friends I've had over my lifetime. It seems like, as time passed on, one would appear just as another was in the process of disappearing.

That's the funny thing bout friends: They have a habit of disappearing.

I remember one of my first ever friends in elementary school. Kindergarten, to be exact. I think her name was Kayla and she used to live next to our school, which was only down the road from my house. We hung out just about everyday and we sat next to one another in our afternoon class.

Then one day, we were playing at the school's playground with her older brother, and she looks over at me and says "I don't want to be your friend anymore". I was 5. I was heartbroken because Kayla had been my best friend. Luckily, my dad had just pulled up to pick me up, and so I ran crying to his car.

I didn't go to afternoon class after that.

Then when I was 8, I was upset after my best friend cheated at Uno. At least 8 year old me thought she'd cheated. We'd been friends forever, but that didn't stop me from drawing a mean picture of her, which I immediately tore up and threw away. But she found it, told my teacher, and suddenly my entire school hated me and I lost my best friend.

The same year I met the girl I've been best friends with for 11 years. We went through everything together, from transferring schools, to theatre, to Disneyland to high school, to our lives changing forever. We've been through thick and thin together.

But in the past year or so, I've noticed us distancing ourselves from one another. Hell, homegirl didn't even tell me she was engaged. We hardly talk and best friend seems to be routine, but something that neither of us is really making an effort to maintain. And it scares me because I don't know what I'd do without her in my life forever. But I'm afraid that's the way it's beginning to look.

Then my current best friend now, a boy I haven't even met living on the other side of the country. Without him, I wouldn't have survived much of the past few years. He'll get a big head reading this, but it's true. We've got plans to take over the world together. Literally. But I've seen what's happened between me and friends before, and I don't want that to happen here.

Lots of things about the word "friend" annoy me. It doesn't seem like it can truly convey everything that a person is.

I remember being with the first guy I was ever romantically involved with before we were anything official (which we never were) and him being on the phone and saying he was "hanging out with a friend". It killed me a little bit to hear, especially because I regarded him as so much more than a friend.

Friend.

Friend. Friend. Friend. Friend. Friend.

It's a 6 letter word with 600 connotations. It's a dangerous word because it can imply so many things, and one usage of the word can mean different things to different people because of their own experiences.

I've been friend zoned.

I've friend zoned.

But there's a lot of different ways in which to do it, either for your protection or for theirs.

What is a friend?

Why do I care? If friends are a thing constantly changing, constantly moving forward, adding and multiplying...then why do I care what it is?

There is no one singular meaning to the word "friend".

A friend is just something that happens. And we don't always understand why.

To be a friend, is to know that you will be a piece of someone for the rest of their lives.

November 2nd.

Has there ever been a date or a time that seems to haunt you?

For me, in the last three years, at least (that's as far as I can remember), I always seem to look at the clock at 9:11 every day.

I don't mean that it seems like everyday. No.

Literally every single day.

At least once. Sometimes at both 9:11's.

It's been something that's plagued me since I first noticed the affliction. What was the significance of 9:11. What is the significance, even today? I don't understand. A part of me feels like there's something that has happened, or will happen at 9:11 someday. And so, as fate's funny way of getting me ready, it forces me to see that time, over and over again. Every day. Until it happens.

Or to make me think back to events that may have taken place at 9:11. I mean, the time of day. Other connotations are obvious.

I don't know what it is, but it mystifies me still.

Just like each time November 2nd seems to roll around. For the past few years, this seems to be a date of some significance in some way or another.

My grandmother died this day when I was 9.

I met my best friend at home this day when I was 8. Well, actually talked to her.

It was the day my first "boyfriend" ever asked me out.

I moved in with one of my best friends on November 2nd.

And it was the date of my last dance, the first where I actually brought a date not out of requirement who meant something more than a friend. It was the day I finally learned to let go.

It seems like November 2nd has some sort of significance in my life in addition to 9:11. Or maybe I'm going crazy. But that day has always had some sort of aura that surrounds it, I don't know why. There's always this weird feeling I get, reminding me that something great is going to happen on that day in the future. Or maybe it already happened, on the day that I learned to forget, and that feeling will return no more.

Part of me, ironically, wants to get married on November 2nd.

Understandably, that's a bit of a stretch, from one conversation topic to another. But it's a statement that needed to be voiced. A part of me wants to get married on that day because a part of me thinks that something big will happen on that day, and it will be the day, maybe this year, maybe some other year, when I meet the one, if such a thing exists. Or the day that I'm asked out for the first last time.

I'm a hopeless romantic in many ways. If you haven't realized this by this point in my writing, then maybe you should refer to any and all of my pieces of old. Love is a big part of who I am, whether begrudgingly or hopefully. It just is. And so, as many young girls do, I dreamed of the day of my wedding. And how the day wouldn't be a day conveniently chosen, but one with purpose, thought out and meaningful. It would be an anniversary of the first date, or of the date we first met. Maybe November 2nd will be that day. And maybe it won't.

Maybe something will happen at 9:11 on November 2nd.

Something that will change my life forever.

I don't know if I'll ever know. But these things can't be coincidence, can they? The times or dates throughout history that have repeatedly been something noteworthy...those have to mean something don't they?

It has to mean something.

Double Entendre

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

That was the first sound that Denise heard as she slowly gained consciousness. The bright white lights infiltrated her eyes, forcing her to squint, trying to block out all light. The beeping continued, keeping time with her heart.

She was alive.

That’s what she reminded herself as she ever so slowly came back to consciousness, as she slowly realized that she was in a hospital, tied up to God knows how many machines. Her eyes opened, and she could see, if only blurry at first, that she was in a hospital bed. She’d been here once, years ago when she’d had her tonsils removed, and recognized it as UC Irvine Medical Center. Out the window, the sky was clear, and the tall palms swayed in the winds and the traffic from the 5 nearby.

There was knock on the door, and as is usual of hospitals, they didn’t wait for a response before walking in. A nurse dressed in blues holding a chart stepped in, looked at her, and mumbled something about her being awake now, and then checked the monitor.

“How are you feeling?”

“Good. I’m sorry, but what happened?”

The nurse looked at Denise with no expression on her thin face. “You were in an accident. There’s a state psychologist outside waiting to talk to you.  Can I send him in?”

An accident?

Denise’s last memory before waking up was fuzzy. Had she even been driving? She could recall almost nothing, just the pain of stiffness in her joints.

          How long had she been unconscious?


(Author's Note: I wrote this portion for a Noir piece in class, but I actually intend to use in it another piece I'm writing in which a person can delete memories of a person.)

Red String of Fate

I don't know if I believe in soul mates.

That there are two people in the world, and no matter what, they always will find each other. It sure is a nice thing to think about, that there is someone in the world that is made for you. And that you're made for them. And everything about your hearts and souls is connected, intertwined, and that from the moment you meet each other, fate has taken hold and there's nothing you can do.

I'm a particular romanticizer about the Red String of Fate. It states that there is an invisible string that connects the fingers of soul mates. That the string, over time, can get tangled and messed up, but it will never break. And in the end they will always come back for one another. I think it's romantic. Almost as romantic as realizing that the stereotypical image of a heart comes from two human hearts being sewn together. Which makes sense why broken hearts look as they do.

But I just don't know if I actually believe in the idea of soul mates. Is there only just one person in this world who is meant for you? Or is there one perfect person for you at a time and then when you change, that person changes too? So when I'm 14 and innocent still, could Bob be the one meant for me (even if I haven't met him yet), but then when I'm 21 and hardened by life and heartbroken by 17 year old Bob who was changed by 15 year old Denise, is Steven my actual soul mate?

I do think that everything happens for a reason.

I believe that there are people that come into our life for a specific person. That there are people who come into our life, that are meant to come into our life, to give us some higher purpose. I believe that the first boy I ever fell in "love" with (well, I thought it was love at the time, but to be fair I was 16 and naive) introduced me to the best person in my life, my best friend, who I've yet to meet. That boy came into my life, ruined it in many ways, in order for me to find a higher happiness.

There are many cases like that, where things happen in order for you to gain a higher knowledge and appreciation out of life. I know why things happen. I know why I didn't move away for my first year of college, I know why I graduated high school a year early, all so that I could spend my dad's last year of life by his side rather than 1000 miles away at a school I couldn't care less about.

Soul mates seems like it could be a thing. But I have a hard time believing it because people change, unexpected things happen, but does all of this happen so that we can meet "the one"?

And what happens if you don't have a soul mate?

I met a guy in the early part of this year who was really nice, really kind. We went on a few dates. He was good and sweet and we had so much in common. We actually could have been something, I believe. That is, if I hadn't been changed by others I'd met before him. This new boy could have been the soul mate of 18 year old Chelsea, who wanted something like that.

But now, at nearly 20, I realize that that's not what makes me happy because the one of late that has made me happiest was the complete opposite. Not a nice guy, not sweet, and yet he made me realize what I truly think could be a potential. And so I ran from the guy that could have once been connected to my red string.

The Red String of Fate can pull, twist, tangle...but never break.

But do I have a red string? Because who I am now is different from who I am yesterday and who I will be tomorrow. Sometimes I think I should learn how to read palms, to see the love line and see if it intersects and runs together, or maybe my soul mate's line is broken before it meets mine.

Will I be alone and without a red string?

People say that I'm young and that I just haven't met the right person yet. Well, obviously this is true. But you begin to wonder at the age of 20 when you've never changed your Facebook status to saying "In a Relationship" ever, whether or not you ever will. And you begin to wonder when you'll finally give up. Because giving up almost seems like the better option after 20 years of being lonely. And how, after 20 years of living, and knowing all of these people, and loving your own life, you can't seem to find anyone who feels anything towards you in such a way.

I'm beginning to give up on the idea of a soul mate. At least a romantic one.

There are people in my life that I was meant to meet. There are people who I will be forever changed by, either in a bad way or a good way. In the end, it's all for the better. It's a matter of getting over the bad to recognize the good.

There will always be The One That Got Away.

There will always be the Beautiful Mistake.

There will always be regrets, or the one you should have looked closer at when you had the chance.

Some people then believe in The One.

The red string of fate can be stretched, tangled, and twisted...but never broken.

But what if it can?

Unattainable

I'd always had an affinity for sitting in unusual spots.

I remember as a child, leaning over the arm of the couch, staring at the popcorn ceiling of my childhood home and imagining, by some design or other, that I had the ability to walk up there, right side up in an upside down world. Not much has changed in the years that have passed, and even now I sit with my legs flung over the arm of the chair, doing my homework in the world of my own design.

My least favorite question in the world was the be asked what I wanted. What do you want for Christmas? For my birthday? For dinner? With the exception of the last (if only at some times) those questions frustrate me to no end.

The things that I want are unattainable.

Perhaps muse-like, perhaps self-deprecating and depressing, but there are no real worldly possessions that I want, that I feel the need to obtain and call my own. Sure, I am human. As a young adult of the 21st century, of course there are times where I want nothing more than a new phone of the finest technology, which will surely be obsolete within the next 6 months. But I didn't need it. I didn't truly want anything at all.

The things I yearn for are the feelings, the memories of times gone past. Things that can't or won't ever come back.

More than anything I wanted to walk through the park of my childhood, in a state far away, on a crisp January evening. Listening to my iPod as I strolled around the lake, through the miniature wildlife reserve. No matter where I was in the park, I could always see my house, just across the street. I spent hours in this park, running or walking my dogs or simply musing about life. What I want most is to be back at that park, able to walk through any day that I pleased.

I spent much of my childhood here, imagining what my life would be.

Never did I imagine what would actually happen. Never did I imagine that the other things I yearned for would come true...and then the illusion could be shattered.

I want the memories from back then back. But there's more. I want the feelings back. I want to go back to the night of my first kiss. The adventure of the night, all culminating back at his house, how we huddled together in his bed for warmth, how he, a boy I hardly knew, held me close as we talked about our lives telling one another anything the other wanted to know. The tension that was felt until quietly, slowly our lips came together, sweet at first, then suddenly full of passion and a hunger to be closer and closer. You didn't even know you were my first.

I want to go back to the night of that dance, when I made a fool of myself and had no regrets, and you were with me every step of the way. For the first time in my entire life, I felt completely free, like everything in the world was finally set in place. When I first realized how much I truly cared about you and I started to believe that maybe, possibly we could actually last.

I want to go back to the night of the movie, when you held me close as I cried before we walked into the theatre. How you fell asleep in my lap and the only thing keeping me awake was running my fingers through your hair. And how we went back home and I truly gave you my full trust. Something that has been accomplished by so few people.

And most importantly, I want to go back to the last night. To change what I said, to force you to talk. For us to come to an understanding. For the closure to be there. Instead of me leaving, crying, and in a panic because I didn't understand what had happened. To me not talking to you for nearly a week. And when we finally did, everything was gone. Including my heart.

I want all of that back. I both want to relive those memories, to go back to those times, but also to erase them completely from my memory. I want to move on from these times, to find someone else who will make new memories with me, who will make me feel even better than even you accomplished. And I want to feel like you're not the only person in the world.

I want to go back to those times as a kid when I imagined I could walk on the popcorn ceiling from my spot on the arm of the leather couch. To all those strolls through the park of my youth, where I didn't know the pain that came along with your dreams coming true. Before I knew the pain of your dreams turning out to be a nightmare.

I want you.

But what I want is unattainable.

So I give them the basic answers: "I don't want anything. I don't need anything. Yes, really." And I go on through life, without a thing in the world because I had what I wanted, there was once a time where I truly desired nothing, and then it all was gone.

I wish I'd known what had been happening at the time.

And I wish I knew why I still write about it. Even to this day.

Do I write in order to justify my not explaining my thoughts to you in the first place?

Do I write in hopes that someday I'll look back at it all and laugh at what a foolish girl I am?

That maybe, one day, you'll be reading this and things will come rushing back and you'll be mine again? It's foolish, and I know that life doesn't work this way. And sometimes what we want, isn't always what we need.

I don't know. I wish I did. I wish I knew why I felt this way, why writing is the only way I can cope, and how I'm supposed to move on because I obviously meant so little to you. A hard concept to believe.

For a brief period of time, I felt like I had everything I could ever need. And now everything is out of my grasp, not mine to have.

Unattainable.

About a Person

There’s a saying that blazes like wildfire across the social media blogging sites of this century, in which teenagers more concerned with the affairs of the world, or of art, rather than celebrity gossip, which states “It’s funny how someone who was once a stranger can mean the world to you.”

True also is the inverse.

It’s funny how someone who once meant the world to you is now a stranger.

Hey stranger. I miss you stranger. Dear stranger, why don’t we talk anymore? Can’t you see how much I still love you stranger? Stranger, what happened? I still care stranger. You still mean the world to me stranger.

The first time we met, I thought you arrogant, cocky and rude. It’s all true. First impressions are almost always right surprisingly. But what changed was the way that I understood that arrogance, the cockiness, and the humor, which made you rude. Stranger, you were a stranger once but I soon learned differently.

You told me a secret once, of why you looked so different. It was something I hadn’t noticed, mostly because I pay little attention to the physicality. I’m more concerned of what makes a person who they are. You shared your secret of why you looked so different, how half of your face was blank, didn’t feel or see a thing. You swore me to secrecy back then, a promise I intended to keep. I held your face in my hands with that secret, placed my cheek against the blank slate, and just held it, feeling what you could not.

You became a stranger, and suddenly that secret could not be contained by me.

It was the dark humor that first connected to me. The fact that, on these social media blogging sites of the century, you posted dark images, of dead dictators of days gone by, of murders in gruesome detail, of the beautiful, which was surrounded in the darkness. It’s a trait that few people share, finding the beautiful in the diseased, in the dark. Most people flee from the darkness. I’d always searched for it. I thought you had too.

It turns out you were the darkness.

There’s a certain feeling of closeness, which you share with very few people. In which you feel, from the very first moment you get to know them, that you can be completely yourself with them. Like you have nothing to fear, no reason to feel awkward, that the whole world is your oyster and you are invincible whenever that person is beside you. I came to you once, so sad, so totally full of a sadness I could not explain, and without having to, you wrapped me in your arms, held me close, and told me enough jokes until the pain went away. Until it was so far away that I forgot what had made me sad in the first place.

Since you’ve left, that pain has come back, and it is insurmountable, impossible to describe.

You held me tight all those times, and I got too used to it. I got to used to the feeling of you, the thin material of your white shirt, the scar on your stomach from battles of years past, the scruff on your cheeks, the strength of your arms, and the stiffness of your hair as my fingers stroked through it. Hardest to forget was the scent which completely entrapped me, pulled me in, made it something that no one else can compare it to. Even now, stranger, when I see you, that scent is impossible to ignore.

You have no trouble ignoring me however.

It is funny how someone can make such a full circle transition. You were once a stranger, and then suddenly I knew you better than I’d known anyone in my entire life. I knew you more than I would care to know anyone else I will ever meet. And, in the blink of an eye, something changed. The eyes that had once been bright when they looked at me, filled with the adventurous soul of a twenty-something, turned dark and distant. Those eyes don’t even look at her with that same spirit.

You are a stranger to me now.

And part of me is of the belief that you’re a stranger to yourself now.

It’s impossible to get to the heart of a person. To be able to use the so few words available in the English language, only a mere few million, to accurately describe a person inside and out. Physically, it’s quite simple to do, to note the scratch on your cheek from when you let me shave your face, and how the blood bubbled slowly, and made a trail like a singular tear down the cheek, a line of scarlet marring the perfection of white skin. The way your glasses, thick and black, always had that fingerprint across the left lens that would never quite go away because you would always use your middle finger to push them back onto the tall bridge of your slightly crooked nose.

But, like I said, I’ve never been one for the physical.

The difficult part of this is understanding what makes a person who they are. Words don’t do the human condition any justice. How can one simply describe the way a person makes you feel? How they can make you feel, for the first time, like someone else in the world exists who is like you, who understands your own soul? How the soul of another can align so singularly with your own? The little quirks about them, the fact that they’re arrogant, that the fact that they are rude, are a part of what makes them who they are. And things like this are impossible to describe because it isn’t the way in which they show how rude they are, but more the way in how their personality changes in certain situations. It’s impossible to describe how a person can be making jokes at the expense of a whole group of people one moment, sitting in a drive thru, and then the next moment be ordering kindly, using “please” and “thank you” because of a girl he’d once offended years before.

People are impossible.

Stranger, you are impossible to describe. Impossible to grasp. And impossible to forget. And I wish, with all of my heart, that at some point in this crazy life, our souls will align again, and you will no longer be referred to as stranger.

But words have still not determined what the future will bring, and will not until it is over.