okaaaay i’ve been moping and grieving and bawling my eyes out and writing all these laments about our friendship. i started making my zine while in a deep state of love but also of mourning, and then i realized that for mourning to even take place, there must be love there, too, or else what is there to mourn…? i’ve got to focus on the presence of that love.
the summer’s historically been a time for me to grieve my losses so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it’s all hitting me now. especially because the last seven summers have been with you, and this one is without. i’m reminding myself that an ending isn’t a failure. change is necessary… it happens all the time. maybe i’m just taking it hard because throughout seven years of change, you were a constant.
there are still so many pieces of you in me and my life… sometimes it feels like i see you in almost everything. ma was a movie that you made me watch, my pout is an imitation of yours, i still reference our inside jokes that no one else catches onto, and my favorite blanket is the cheap one you got for the couch at our final apartment together and offered to let me take because you had no use for it. i watched the sunset on the train the other night and started crying for a few reasons—good ones even, but i also cried thinking about how my life is changing in so many beautiful ways that i can’t tell you about. it’s so strange. i wouldn’t be here to be experiencing all this if not for you, but you aren’t even here to share it with me.
something i’ve pondered this year is the element of water and its place in my astrological chart and throughout my life. my two first major friendships were water-like. that makes sense, you were both cancers. the first one was like giant crashing waves in a storm. your friendship felt like gentle waves that rock you to sleep.
i know you’ll never see this, but i think pouring my grief out somewhere and leaving behind a testament of my love for you and some kind of Proof of that is integral to Progression…