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I get her text, and pull myself from my nest of quiet and stories, built to erase myself from the world. Brownies for breakfast, empty mugs of tea, coloring pages of fawns and armadillos, pencil peelings lost in my sheets. Piles of books I haven’t read, audio stories of Mistborns burning metals, vigilantes in hoods shooting arrows across my computer screen (Oliver is way hotter than Barry, in case you were wondering). I’m all too good at ignoring the world, and the world is all too good at forgetting about me. But hours wear monotonous and lonely, and I know I need her.

She’s there, smiles and long curly hair, the same smell I remember from childhood, when we’d get our team hoodies mixed up and I’d know which was hers. A hug catapults us into conversation, like we’re picking up in the middle of something already started, still familiar with the language only we have shared for over six years. Our feet move as we talk, picking up speed, following the mirrored blues of the river beside us, propelling us across dirt paths, over bridges, balancing on roots. We’ve always talked best on the move, in the places we love, letting nature tease out our happinesses and hurts, easing the process of sharing and connecting.

Like a breath of sweet spring wind, the remembrance of how we talk the same, laugh the same, finish each other’s sentences, speak the same words at the same time. How something integral about our souls is the same. I let the feelings and thoughts that have been building up inside of me just spill out, and she does the same, affirming, questioning, just being there. Accepting. Caring.

There is so much I keep inside. So much I hide from everyone around me. I feel so much and share so little. I think so much that I only allow the journal by my bed to know. I hide behind the anonymity of screens and the privacy of a closed bedroom door. I bottle up who I am, the good and the hard, because it’s less scary than venturing to let another human being in. And yet I forget how the unspoken, the secret, eats away at everything that is alive inside of me.

But now, I let it all flow free, feel a safe space to welcome all that I am. I don’t need to hide here, and neither does she. We aren’t trying to fix each other, because we know we cannot. We aren’t trying to be exactly alike, because we can’t do that either, although we are insanely kindred. We aren’t trying to explain or prove or dissect. We just need to be understood. To be heard. To be loved. To be seen.

Finally feeling unalone opens my eyes again, and I feel something inside me trying to wake up. I see the forest, see it’s beauty. Green and brown arches, delicate and reaching. Clouds mirrored in water. Earthy scent of the air. Calm expanse of silver and blue. My fingers reach out to brush bark as I walk, daring to touch the world again. Laughter feels good. Honesty feels better. Embrace feels best.

I thought I had lost her once. We’d made it through high school, but college broke us apart. It was the greatest hurt I had yet felt, and it floored me. It took travelling to another country on the opposite side of the globe in order to feel like myself again, and still I missed her. Still, I hoped. (I have found that hope is something that sticks closer to me than my own breath.) My heart knew she couldn’t ever truly be replaced. What we had was too special, too unique. We meant too much to each other. Even as I didn’t understand, I made sure she knew I was still there for her. I always would be. And miraculously, with God’s help, we made our way back to each other. Now, each of us is walking through the darkest times of our lives. And she has been one of God’s greatest gifts to me through it all. We have needed the reassurance of the other’s hand in the dark. We have needed someone who sees the true self and the struggles and is not intimidated by the mess. Someone who says, I feel it too. Who says, I am not going anywhere.

Love and pain, climbing and questioning, hope and fear, waiting and following our hearts, we talk about it all, no holds barred. Minutes bleed into hours, light fades from the sky as cars hum over the bridge, and we could talk through the night if we wished. I wish I could have her every week, instead of a handful of days a year. I wish we still lived in the same city. I wish we were fourteen again, running out into rainstorms and spinning beneath the thunder. But we have this moment, and the promise of years of moments to come. She sees me. I see her. This is how we’ve always been. This is how we are. And with God’s grace, this is how we always will be. I’ll return to my world, and she’ll return to hers, but we have this to hold on to–

I see you too.

As this new year comes around, as Christmas peeks its faerie lights around the corner, as the whisper of snowflakes to be begin to kiss the air… I find myself thinking of beginnings. and endings. and what I hope for and what I fear. and what I’m going to do with those answers I find.

I’m afraid. I can say that much. I will admit I’ve been scared out of my mind for most of the last year. I can admit now that I’ve been sad for most of the last year, and anxious. I can also say that I don’t want to be that way any more. I can also say I don’t want to let go.

There’s other things I can say about this year. Amazing things. Things so unexpected and warm and incredible that now that they’re gone they hurt to think about even as they make me smile. The absence of those things is what makes me sad. It’s one thing, and more than one thing. It’s one big thing and many things around it. I don’t want to leave those things behind in this year. I want to take them with me, but I’m scared that if I take them with me in the same way, they’ll keep on making life too heavy.

My mind keeps circling around to one night. When I let someone really dear to me hold me close for the last time. He said, “we’re going to be okay.” I wanted to believe that. Really badly. But when months rolled around and there wasn’t a ‘we’ anymore, not the way I wanted it to be, it wasn’t true. I wasn’t okay. And I’m still not okay.

For a long time I didn’t know if I could be okay. Someone would say, you’re going to be okay, and I kind of hated them for it. How could they say that when I didn’t even know? But now, looking into this next year, for the first time I can say it to myself and believe it. I’m still not okay. But I know that somehow, someday, I’m going to be. I don’t know when, exactly. But someday. And I want to be moving toward that, even though I know that some days won’t feel like moving at all.

But that said… I know that I can’t leave any regrets behind in this year. I need to say everything that’s in my heart, or at least make it available to be heard. I need to do everything I feel like I need to do. It’s better to regret doing something than regret not doing something. (at least, in most cases) If I walk into next year and find myself still alone, I need to know that I did everything I could do. I need to know it’s not my fault. I need to know that if there was even a sliver of a chance, that I took it. I can’t be confident in myself any other way. I can’t leave it to God and try to find my dreams again without that.

Does this scare me? Heck yes. Heck. Yes.

But in the end, my fear doesn’t matter. What I do, does.

Do I want to walk into this next year alone? Um, heck no. Do I want to find connection again? Do I want to hold tight to this big hope and not let go? It’s all I’ve been able to think about for the last year. And whether or not anything changes before the year’s end, I’m still going to carry that hope with me into the next year, along with my memories. No matter what happens. That hope, those memories, are part of who I am. I’ll just walk into January with the resolve that this year, I won’t let them crush me. No matter if seeds turn into saplings, or if the ground stays hard and cold. I won’t die with them, even as I carry the prayer of growth along with me. I’m done feeling dead.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t wish that I could return to that moment, and hear those words change… ‘we are okay.’

I’m scared to open my heart and reveal everything that’s inside. That’s scary no matter the situation. But, in a bittersweet way, I don’t have anything to lose anymore. I’m jumping off the edge. Either someone will catch me, or I’ll fly solo. But either way, this barren cliff won’t be my home anymore.

My Mom once told me, “God won’t let you lose true home.” That rings true. No matter where I want true home to be, no matter where I think it is, no matter who I think it is, God won’t let me lose it. And as I step into the unknown, that is something I can count on.

I’m driving from the museum and there’s this guy standing on the median. young, with a beard and floppy longish brown hair. and a sign. he’s holding a piece of cardboard that says something like, $1 for a burger. there’s nothing unusual about this; I see a lot of people like him driving  to and from work in the city. but he’s probably not much older than me. and he could be anybody. he could be somebody I know. or could have known. and he’s probably got something to be sad about too.

something inside me constricts, and before I know it a crinkled piece of green moves from my hand to his through the window. his hair is a little greasy and his nails a tad bit too long and his thank-you sounds sincere. I want to ask his name, feel a need to know it, but don’t or can’t, I’m not sure which, the desire gets stuck halfway up before it has the chance to turn into words. and the light changes and the car moves and all of a sudden I’m crying and I don’t know why. that in itself is not unusual for me. but often it has nothing to do with other people. usually it’s about the pain I keep bottled up inside and buried where it’s the hardest for me to see it until my body says that’s it. and this moment is about that. and it isn’t.

usually, pain isolates. at least, that’s what it does to me. it wraps me in an atmosphere of alone and helplessness and misunderstanding and I can’t–or won’t–reach through and no one else can, or I won’t let them. but I’m either a nonfunctioning rain puddle on a gray day or a vibrating mess of scribbles on a forgotten sticky note or a hard, hard shell of armor that’s as brittle and unfeeling as a bone found in the woods in last year’s leaves. but no matter what it feels like, my pain isolates. because it’s somehow too much to deal with and so my heart kicks into emergency protocol–stop feeling for other people. better yet, don’t feel at all.

that’s just how it is.

usually.

but I’m becoming aware that perhaps there exists these other moments. ones where, instead of drawing me inward, folding me into myself, pain suddenly flips my insides out, throwing off my plodding mental equilibrium, and all of a sudden it is the opposite–

I’m feeling for the whole world.

the whole beautiful, terrible world.

and it’s saying, everything hurts.

but then after a blinding second everything collapses down again and I am just left with myself, my own world, my own missing, my own hole that I can’t seem to fill, and I wonder, maybe I just imagined it. maybe I just wanted to feel connected to something other than myself again. because in the end, myself is simply not enough.

a few days in the mountains brings clarity.

two hundred feet up with the wind trying to pull you off the sandstone as dusk descends… yeah, that will wake you up.

rappelling into the black, hiker headlamps bobbing in the woods, heading toward the not-even-a-town that’s sprung up at the base of Seneca’s spire, just overhang and air beneath your feet… that will remind you you’re alive.

the brother you’ve missed for too long, hard cider bottles with broken tops, baring souls by the fire, sitting in the hot tub until the water is lukewarm and fingers are prunes, spontaneous hugs and back rubs in the morning… these things tell you that life is worth it.

laughing like I used to, feeling my brain stop its crazy spinning, quietness in my center, something deep inside me trying to wake up for the first time in what feels like years… I remembered that happiness isn’t utterly unattainable, worth straining for.

driving back into the city in the dark, hiding tears at goodbyes, the lonesome radio chattering in my car, solo–the sadness and claustrophobia and missing descends on me again. it feels like it’s crushing me.

a broken, lovesick heart. trapped in an anxious, depressed body. living in a house my childhood memories don’t recognize. stuck in a city full of people I used to know. holding once-upon-a-time dreams I barely recognize as my own.

what the heck am I doing here.

I’ve tried everything to run from my sadness. I’ve traveled. I’ve climbed. I’ve read. I’ve lost myself in Netflix. I’ve listened to music. and made music. I’ve written. and written. and written. and slept. and slept. and slept. I’ve sat in church and sneaked out of church. I’ve talked to people and refused to talk at all. I’ve cried and felt numb. I’ve let myself remember and forbid myself from remembering anything. I’ve literally run, tennis shoes on asphalt, my breath shaking my world.

the sadness isn’t going anywhere. I guess that happens when you lose your whole world, its center and everything orbiting it. everything goes dark, because everything that was shining just isn’t there anymore.

but I’ve got to try to make it better. I can’t change my circumstances. I can’t make choices for other people. I can’t wait on someone who may never fight for me. my stubborn heart might keep waiting, but the rest of me has to try to find a way to live, even as it hurts. I’ve got to tell myself, it will work out if it’s meant to. no matter where I am. no matter what I’m doing. no matter if I’m happy or not.

maybe that means quitting school temporarily. maybe that means leaving the city, turning my car into a home, hitting the road. getting a dog. maybe it means finding a job that gets me outside and close to the wild places. maybe it means finding people who don’t know me. maybe it means chasing down the people that do, in Brooklyn and Boston and Germany. maybe. maybe. maybe.

maybe this will turn out to just be another form of running. maybe it won’t. but I won’t know until I do. and wherever I go… I’ll take the memory of you.