old friends and old hurts

Nostalgia is personified in the old friends you re-meet, old friends tackling adult milestones. It’s enough to give a girl whiplash. It doesn’t feel quite real, it won’t feel real till the flip side after distance is reestablished. 


Nostalgia is a liar, people are oh so the same and oh so different, it hurts the heart to see the new scares ripped across their skin from the dark they survived. None of us leave here unscathed, to be overdramatic. I love these people and it hasn’t changed a bit, the way that gets expressed and how that looks is extremely different. 


Trying to keep these stories to myself, where’s the line between talking about my life and those of the ones I love? 


If I told you I see you

would you call me a liar? 


If I told you the truth

would you accept it? 


If I told you I love you

would you believe me? 


I saw this coming a mile away and still I’ll sit here. Nostalgia is such a liar and I couldn’t be angrier that I fell into the trap. I love you I love you I love you, I’m trying to convince myself I’m not cold hearted. Trying to hold two truths in tension to one another and keep walking. 


Trying to be vague while telling the truth, it’s a dance, one I’m unrefined at and clumsy. Where can I hide? 


I want my mom

but I’m grown


She’s better than me

but I’m strong


I miss my family

but I’m okay


I’ve never felt so old, so out of place and out of peace. But I’m meant to be here, to see these things, bear witness to the once in a life time excitements. I’m a home body and I miss our well water, but I love my people and I need to be here. I don’t find this as easy as I’d like to. 


I’m tired in a way I’d hoped to never see again, bone weariness in my soul. I want to be excited, to be unmovable and stoic, but I feel it all deeply and with my whole heart. I need a break, a rest, a breath that fills my whole lungs. 


I don’t want to hurt like this, but with love comes pain, right? 


I don’t like it here

and I love it more than breath


I don’t like this seat

and I’m oh so comfortable 


I don’t like to leave

and I’m already gone


This is not an easy life, and no-one said following Him would be. I hold my convictions in clenched white knuckled fists, holding tight to the only things I know to be true. No one ever warned me how hard it would hurt to look them in the eye and have to dig so far down to find their heart. It’s a fluttering thing, small as a baby bird and barely hanging on, it’s so small. 


I can help

its not my job


I want to help

its not my place


I need to help

its not my responsibility 


The words just keep coming, I don’t think the end is coming. Every new stanza is a new corner of heart revealed. I can’t let it go, it’s not in my nature, I don’t want to. I’ll claw my way back till it hurts me irrevocable, and that’s where my failings start. 


I’m no good at this. My heart breaks, in shattered sharp pieces, but I keep that fact to myself. Because should I let it slip, I’ll never be put back together again, I’ll have to answer to some questions I’d rather leave quiet. My stomach hurts, and I don’t know if it’s just because I’m sick, or if it’s my heart screaming in the only way it can. 


Last time was healing, this time is stretching, and I’m not feeling flexible. How’d I get here? 


I wouldn’t care 

if I didn’t love


I wouldn’t hurt

if I didn’t love


I wouldn’t bend out of shape

if I didn’t love 


Nostalgia is a liar, and I’d like to teach it a lesson or two. For getting my hopes up and letting my down. I love I love I love, and so I hurt I hurt I hurt. Grief and the birth of new life, they walk so close to hand in hand, I don’t know how we’ve done this for so long. 


I’ll be alright, it’ll be okay if it all works out, and it’ll be okay if it doesn’t. I don’t like endings, loath goodbyes, the finality of it all, so see you next time. 

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