It’s weird how the internet brings us together. You can feel so close to someone you’ve never met even though it seems if you did meet, it would progress naturally along the lines of closeness already established. Maybe it’s something about lowering your guard and feeling able to open up sooner without the physical constraints of real life. It’s almost as if being with someone in person can be daunting because there are other elements that get in the way of growing close to someone’s mind and the intangible parts of them that have no category or name.

I think I’ve only been a good friend in the last year of my life. It’s not that I used to be a good friend but I went through some phases as I grew. I used to be a gossip and that was just my teenage immaturity coming through but I got over that quickly when I saw how it hurt people so badly. Then, like in my romantic relationships, I was a selfish friend not because I am selfish but because I was too scared to put myself out there and get hurt in any regard. I felt sort of like that Simon & Garfunkel song I Am A Rock where I didn’t want to put any part of myself out there so it wouldn’t get hurt. I guess then I realized that it hurt more to keep everything inside. I wasn’t doing anything, not my homework or living or making art or exercising or even writing. I spent a long time in therapy talking about my issues but in the end the thing that has cured me most has been writing. It has been an outlet for the things I feel and for that I’m eternally grateful. I started writing because I had to get things out of me, not to mention I’ve been writing stories and poems since I was 2 or 3, so at first I thought perhaps that it was just a form of therapy. I never imagined I could actually write for academic or a career purpose. It’s kind of terrifying how you find your purpose in life without even realizing it. As a result, I’ve been a better friend. When I can’t say something, I write it and my friends have learned that this is how I am most honest and how I communicate most eloquently. I think in life you kind of have to find your medium and express yourself through it whether it’s words or paint or film or photography or music or dance or being a garbageman or teaching kids or being a doctor, you jut have to find the way you can channel the things in your brain out of your body before the feelings, dark and light, overwhelm you. I think this has made me a better person all around. A better daughter, friend, girlfriend, all of that. it’s all about balance I suppose.

I’m glad you enjoyed my piece about my mother and Christmas. I never know what people will think. I sort of write things instinctively, as I feel them, and I hope that those feelings translate and emanate through the words and text. It’s like breathing life into letters and words and making them hold more meaning than what the dictionary claims they mean. Noun, verb, three definitions, colloquial usage. I think I’m writing for me when I write but for a lot of people as well. I find that when I write to one person, I do best. Maybe that’s why the Love Notebooks work. Or why this novel about my mother is starting to take shape because I’m focusing on one person, one intimate series of moments in life, and everyone can relate to that. We all have incredibly intimate moments with people in our lives and to see them play out in front of us in words or another medium seems comforting, it makes those moments less singular but not any less special. It makes that moment mean more because it becomes magnified by the connection we all have to it.

My sleep was excellent last night. I woke up twice and got a little stressed but calmed myself down thank goodness. Sometimes I feel really tough and resilient but then I feel like I’m really fragile sometimes, like the slightest thing could break me. I’ve wanted to end my life before, I can understand that. Mostly because I didn’t think I’d find the things I’d want in life and that scared me. Also the world seemed infinitely cruel, not to me, but to those who are really down on their luck. I tried to kill myself twice when I was younger but ultimately halted in the middle of doing it. Life is terrible and vicious but what else do we have? We struggle and hurt for the moments where life is so good and feels so exquisite that we feel like we can hold time in our hands and just stop everything. It’s never big moments either, it’s the small ones like holding someone’s hand when they’re upset or kissing your lover at the airport or seeing a movie on a lazy afternoon or hugging your mom so tight that you might crush her ribs. That’s why you live. Not for money or accolades or success. That’s fleeting and the joys that they bring are momentary. It’s hard to believe that when times are hard but in the end what do you have besides your mind with its vivid memories playing back the way Super 8 cameras used to? I don’t know. I think that most of the time we’re so busy looking at the shitty things around us that we can’t even see how beautiful things are just beyond that.