Maybe it's the residual partying that is still clouding my brain, my body definitely still feels broken.
But this haze is thick and deep and grey, comments from shining faces held close to my heart from this weekend, a sea of arms held closer
part of it is the coming down, part of it is this break from being a non-smoker for the weekend entier part of it is that I'm twenty six years old and I feel like I'm going nowhere
and far too swiftly.
But there are cards littering the refrigerator, filled with words so carefully chosen, filled with sentiments stolen from conversations that apparently meant as much to other people as they meant to me.
There are moments from Saturday night, as I stood waiting for the party to hit, fighting waves of self-loathing.
There are moments where Noemie stood there gaping, convinced that I was lying to her about my age by about ten years.
You've done so much, she said, I admire you so much, she said.
and for a moment my heart was brimming.
By two in the morning I'd thrown my sanity to the wind and was introducing myself to semi-strangers, demanding hugs because it was my birthday.
Faces that I've been too shy to throw myself at in the arrogance that seems to have flown from my system in the last couple of years -- suddenly lit up and I understood the same lesson that I learned from John and Marc and Cfoo half a decade ago.
So many faces diving in for affection and somehow I remember all their names, and handful of their idiosyncrasies, when dawn was threatening we were in another bar, and hugs were still heading for me, I was lost in their warmth.
When big yellow hit the sky we were all curled up on a couch in an appartment that I felt far more welcome in the second time around.
My hair somehow having wound itself up into pigtails that I haven't worn since Jazz-ballet class in 1989, everytime I passed someone announced that my doll's face was brightening the room for them.
All these words were so huge. Heard in passing, they stuck in my heart.
My mashy shirt turned out better than I wanted, somehow in the midst of the dance floor it prompted a conversation about using surge-stiching to get that caveman effect on fleece.
And Sunday afternoon the stragglers were curled up on our couches, all of them showing such beauty behind their still-wired faces.
It was so good to have them here. SO wonderful. Yes, a lot of this was influenced by the vitamins I'd inhaled, but...
...there was so much brilliant light that I will carry it with me for some time yet.
And it will cushion this slowly-creeping self-loathing.