with bravado

This past summer, I took a trip to New York with one of my best friends. It was his first time in the city, and we, a pair of writers who happen to direct residence halls, were searching for meaning in every direction. This translated, of course, to spending a graciously brief amount of time in our AirBnB and scouring the city for bookstores, coffee shops, and rocks on which to read.

In Brooklyn, on Fulton Street, there’s a bookstore called the Greenlight Bookstore. Unlike The Strand, the Greenlight is approachably small, with texts adorning tables and shelves as though curated by the tastes of the employees. There, I stumbled upon a book with an interesting cover and title: ‘Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?’

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A year ago, I sat down to make meaning of just what 26 meant for me. Having been ‘my golden year,’ 26 brought me a host of good memories and lessons learned. As it winded down into 27, however, 26 found me spilling onto the ground, my pieces around me. Heart broken, hands shaking, I found myself asking ––

What good is being brave
if love can still fail?

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Around April, I received an email from the ‘Book of the Month’ club, letting me know a friend had recommended I join. The friend –– her name’s Laura –– was really only looking for an opportunity to get a free book credit, but she is also brilliant, and I knew this would be a great way for me to find texts I might not otherwise think to search for.

My first selection, titled One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter, arrived in the second week of May.

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On the day after we started dating, I took my second boyfriend to downtown Indianapolis. We parked my car at the campus apartments close to the river, walking our way into the city and searching for our first adventure together. For dinner, we chose a pizza place –– not a breadsticks-on-wax-paper pizza place, but a dried-cherries-as-toppings pizza place –– and we faced each other. “So,” he said to me, “what should we talk about?”

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I don’t know what to write today. I’m tired of writing about you, working to find ways of reinventing your leaving into something beautiful, something learned. When I work to push my mind in a different direction, however, I still see you in the margins. ‘I’m living a good 2017,’ I start to write. My mind whispers, ‘See? Happiness exists outside of his arms.’

At some point, I know I’ll no longer be living in the context of you. I’ll stop organizing my story into two chapters: before and after you left. Joy, opportunity, and believing in myself won’t be such conscious decisions. I won’t wonder, then, how it can be so simple for you to live outside the context of me.

The context of me. Ultimately, this is the one promised constant in my life. No matter what happens, who shows up or leaves, who sees me or doesn’t. I will always live here, in this body with this heart, the depth of these feelings and complexity of this compassion. And perhaps this is the purpose of all these days on my own, to become acquainted with my lifelong company. To pull at threads, finding absolutes, unraveling the great riddle of myself.

Let’s start with the bad parts, the pieces of my being nobody applauds for. I tell too many stories, for one, and I have a tendency of repeating them. When I’m sharing them, I’m working to connect, but I’m also reliving. Immersing myself in the different chapters I’ve seen. Twenty-seven years of life haven’t given me a solid grip on time, so I’m always running late. I don’t put my things in the place they should go, and I don’t reorganize the mess until it bothers me. I’m not very good at conversations that stay above the emotional surface, which makes me a strange presence at the party. Sometimes I cry, so overwhelmed by how much I’m feeling, but I don’t really know how to let somebody take care of me. My attention span isn’t long, and I don’t always know how to make myself tune in, which can hurt the people I love. I’m stubborn, and I generally think the way I see things is right. I talk too much; I can’t always figure out how to let the silence breathe. I sort through my pain by myself, but then I need to share what I find, again and again, with the people around me. I’m not always at home in my body. I don’t separate my heart from matters, ever, and so I don’t know what it means not to take things personally. Sometimes I don’t know how to show up, so I freeze. I am pulled, always, between loving myself fully and wondering how I’ve ever been loved. I’m afraid I’m not the person people tell me I am.

But the bright side. If I’ve learned anything in the aftermath, it’s that I am capable of loving even when it’s difficult. I don’t know how to do harm without remorse. My strength comes from sitting with my pain, looking at the pieces of myself and figuring out how to fashion myself back together. I see people, beyond the versions of themselves they present to the world, and I feel compelled to inspire them to be more of themselves. I’m not afraid of myself, not really, the ugly and difficult parts, the parts that aren’t easy to love or appreciate. I think I remember them when I set out to love somebody else, when I discover the parts of them that aren’t easy to love, and I work to love them anyway. It is in my nature to search for the good, to look beyond the difficult, maybe because I’m so hopeful someone will do the same for me. I write with honesty and with courage, even if I tend to cycle through the same ideas. I forgive freely, and I work to understand, even if I don’t know how to put my walls back down around the ones who’ve hurt me. I’m not always brave, but I always want to be. I get up and run, despite not having the body of an athlete, despite the times that I fall. I show up, each day, and work to write a good story. I love people, no matter what context I’m in, and they know I love them.

And that’s the context I’m probably always going to live in. I’m not always sure that loving me and knowing me is easy or simple, but I’ve got to hope it’s worthwhile. The people around me, the ones who’ve stayed despite my scars, give me the courage to believe it.

So that’s what I’ll focus on writing today. Coffee in hand, headphones in. There are a thousand stories ahead, and –– at your choosing –– they won’t be in the context of you. But this chapter, maybe these next few, will have you in the margins. So I’ll welcome you, here, to the days before the letting go. I’ll hope you are warm and loved and figuring out how to thrive in the context of you.

Because I’m working to do just that.

Some mornings, I’ll stand
bare feet, hair in tangles

and I’ll survey myself
in the mirror
a twenty-something,
blue boxer briefs,
and, for a flash,
I’ll see it, the
kindness of my eyes
ridged jaw, broad shoulders,
legs carved by miles,
and I’ll believe in it,
my beauty.

How terrible the rarity
that we actually see

ourselves.

I wanted to take a moment, on this evening, to pen a few words to those of us who’ve fought for the right to love and be loved, but also who find ourselves on our own. The following is a love letter to single queer people, written with sincerity and conviction:

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