amidst some extended, anxiety-fueled writer’s block, i want this to serve as a short reminder to myself that in these past few months, i’ve felt—or at least, recognized—unconditional love for the first time in my life.
i’ve wanted to write this piece for myself for a few months now: words on what it feels like to love again and to feel loved again. i find it impossible to write about good things; it is a running joke with myself to look back at the bit of output i’ve had over the past eight months on this substack to find a series of grim meditations, mostly on the very human tendency to hurt each other. though i do think everything i write is fundamentally rooted in optimism for the potential of human good, it feels a little pessimistic when it’s all so utopian in nature, holding out hope for us to create a better tomorrow, but never really today.
today, for some variety of reasons, i find it really difficult to recall the feeling of being loved—a long familiar feeling that always somehow catches me off-guard—and i wonder if i’ll ever be able to write out an extended series of words on joy.
it seems boring to me. i’m not sure that i would read a few hundred words on holding onto the feeling of being loved—i’m mostly sure i’d much rather just like a short tweet about it or a sweet instagram post and move on. really, i know i’d rather read about the ways to give love in good and hopeful ways.
it seems profoundly necessary to write, though. many therapy sessions have helped me realize my dependency on processing the bad in life, macro and micro, through text that feels ephemeral; words that i can easily delete or throw away later on if i begin to disagree and feel distant from, words that i can easily overwrite as i lay them out onto a screen if they don’t feel precisely correct to my heart. it’s unhealthy. i realize i am unable to communicate both bad and good to a face that stares back at me, to what is a living creature processing my thoughts in real time, with the potential to display emotions like sadness or apathy in reaction… and so i fall back on spitting out ruminations into the unspecific void. the written word, especially digital text, feels like i can talk to everybody, or anybody who will listen, without the difficult burden of choosing someone to lay out my confused thoughts to. it feels, subconsciously, like providing a choice for those who care about me to make the decision to help or listen. the other side of this exchange is that it is a whole lot of moral and emotional hurt being unloaded onto unsuspecting people, friends and strangers alike. i can laugh at the meme of “i’m actually at capacity and i don’t think i can hold appropriate space for you” all i want, but i remain under its robotic ideology, and so do so many others in my life. and much like most of our social media-dictated digital interactions now, what i describe here is simply hit-and-run communication—all the conversation we should be having and are supposed to be having, but with no results. the equivalent of communicating with loved ones through bottled notes thrown into the sea.
but when i can, writing down good words feels necessary because i often linger upon my own words filled with dread, like sad lyrics that make me feel understood, to remember the exact feelings i’ve had in a pocket of time. i remember, remember, remember until i cannot feel the exact feeling anymore, until i only feel a caricature of something i felt that i can easily move away from. if i am so driven to do this, which feels normal and human and childlike in form, why can’t i help myself remember some of the times of bliss and goodness, too?
so, a short reminder to myself of comfort and of happiness, for now—of which, today, is a murky, unspecific feeling that peeks out from the bottom of the lake back towards me. it is something i looked into the eyes of not too long ago, a vivid feeling that felt like knowledge more than the abstract; it washed over me like new baptism, such a joy based in spiritual peace:
i felt loved; so loved. without asking for it, without searching for it. i stood in my place in the world and was assured i had a place in it all, a place to call home, without words. for an extended moment, it was a sliver of the smallest piece of the world that was beyond forgiveness, beyond the labor of human understanding; beyond social contracts and beyond moral imperatives. i existed in just a few people’s lives, and my presence was all they needed to love me fully.
and now i regret not savoring the moments even further and more deeply while i could. it is mournful to realize the water washes away so quickly back into the reserves of the world. holy water is but earthly.
there is no need to linger for too long on the bittersweetness of realizing this (or, really, remembering this regret) so late in the game. all that matters is that i felt it, and i remember it to be real: all the grips of the hand and assurances of understanding, through some torrents of tears, are a physical imprint onto me. i lived in a place and remained there. and i so desperately needed to feel that that was okay—to stay in place. it is okay too that the love i felt isn’t something i carry with me forever after i encounter it; love can remain in a time and place that most befit it. to do right by it, i’ll do my best to carry its lessons and its memory as i move onward.
i remember reading pseudoscience in a news article once of a study that showed memories to dissipate over time the more they were recollected in the mind. it left a lasting, tangible fear in me that the more i remember things, the further away they’ll become. i forget so much so easily, and so i fear often that i’ll erase away all the memories i manage to hold onto. writing this today, i hope i don’t forget all the love that was left for me by others for a while. even if i don’t remember too many specifics, i remember the sensations, and i can connect the dots in between.
writers may be doomed to a mumbling existence of imagining the world for themselves, circling upon hypotheticals. but while i live through all the inevitable times where i lack the memory of goodness, awash in the whims of the world, i can try to envision it for a while until i find it again. bread crumbs in the forest.
