Sometimes when I look at him I have a hard time imagining all the life he lived before me because he fits so perfectly in this life we have now; the world of “us” and “ours” and Friday nights in that make a night out in New York City lose all of its appeal.
-tbrumm
Author: Terri Brummitt
Spring always comes eventually
Fall used to remind me of a boy in gray sweatpants driving around East Lansing, Michigan where the world seemed so big and my future so certainly suburban. But now it’s skyscrapers and skylines you see on postcards and people who do what they say and say what they mean and mean it when they say they love me. Fall, like that boy, used to take me from blooming, to wilting, to frozen-freezing-and most often numb to all feeling for an entire Winter’s time. But now Fall reminds me of a girl who wasn’t sure she could, but certain she should try. And she did, and she tries every day to be better than she was the last time and every Fall since has reminded her how good it feels to let the dead things go.
-tbrumm
hindsight is 20/20
Always going, going and never quite getting gone. Always wanting to leave here for there, getting lost on the way, and hoping I run into something that makes me stand still long enough to get a glimpse of myself. Because typically I only see myself as a reflection in the glossy eyes of a boy who will never love me the way I need him to: effortlessly and always.
-tbrumm
Summer’s coming
It’s the way he smells before bed, how his shirts somehow fit both him and me perfectly, the sound of his voice when he’s certain and the way the sunflowers in the center of his eyes bloom only in sunlight.
-tbrumm
new york, new york
The thing about New York is the experience. And if you’re not out experiencing the food, or the people, or the sights, then you’re alone with yourself. Probably the version of yourself you hoped to leave in your hometown, hoping you’d start over in the city that dreams are made of. But in New York, dreams don’t just come fleeting in the night. In New York dreams are on billboards and in the people passing you on sixth ave at 8:45 every morning. In New York, dreams become realities every minute of every day. But not in your tiny apartment or your routine subway schedules. Dreams are in the adventure, in taking a different avenue home after work, in happy hours your rent makes it hard to afford. But I promise you need it.You need that overpriced glass of wine and laughs with friends you’ve only just met. I promise that you need to see the city at night and taste the freshness in the air after 8pm on a weekday. I swear it gets you through the never ending loneliness. I promise there is a waiter, or a cab driver, or a drunk man on the street who will tell you something about life you didn’t know before that moment, that moment that you would’ve missed had you got lost in the routine of letting your life pass you by.
-tbrumm
With grace in her heart and flowers in her hair
A couple of weeks ago I attended Kathleen’s bachelorette party in the Finger Lakes and up until that Sunday night I had no idea what I would stand up here and say. But as we sat around a bonfire that overlooked Seneca Lake I watched burning embers while Kathleen shuffled Taking Back Sunday, Death Cab for Cutie and Dashboard Confessional; songs that we began to sing in loud whispers, afraid we might disturb our neighbors and get kicked out of our house the same as the bachelor party. And as we sang with grand hand gestures I started to look at the houses on the other side of the lake and I looked at my best friend drunk off wine and love and she was laughing. She’s so good at laughing, I’ve seen her laugh thousands of times, but never like this, with grace in her heart and flowers in her hair. So free. THIS, I thought, THIS is what I wish Kathleen and Andrew a lifetime of: belly laughs and hearts this full. Love that frees your heart of all the heavy stuff, but still keeps you rooted to the realities of morning breath and trivial disagreements about whose turn it is to take the dog out. Because love really isn’t about the big things, like moving in together or wedding proposals. Love is in all the moments that led you there, in how you two can’t agree on who kissed who first in Billy’s living room in Florida, or in the way Kathleen says Andrew with a hard ‘A’, no emphasis on the drew, or the way Andrew says Kathleen, drawing it out slow, savoring her name like his favorite flavor of ice cream, It’s waking up next to each other every morning, crusty-eyed and groggy, and knowing you want to continue to do so every day for the rest of your lives. Today alone does not define your love, it’s all the yesterdays, it’s today, and it’s in every day going forward. Though rooted to the earth, may the love you share make each of you feel as if you can touch the sky.
-tbrumm
Glow in the dark
Sad part is, more people are afraid of seeing the light than they are of wallowing in the dark.
-tbrumm
Comfortable silence
I like the way the palms of your hands felt pressed against my ears. You had never kissed me standing up before, not really. Not like that. Not with your fingers in my hair and my head tilted back and in a way that put cracks in all the walls I’ve been building: soft, but certain. My hair was wet from the shower and I wore a blue ducky robe I received as a teen, but you kissed me like a man who knows what he wants and I knew that I didn’t want you to leave and my lips were begging for you to stay and your body language was saying, “See you real soon, babe.” and somehow with no words at all you said everything I needed to hear.
-tbrumm
And that’s how it’s supposed to be
I had a habit of imagining your arms around me when I was having trouble sleeping. And sure enough, with in minutes I’d drift off into a deep sleep. It worked for years. Years. But not last night, not this week, not anymore. It’s not that I rejected the thought, it’s that I couldn’t complete it. I could no longer remember what it feels like, what you feel like. I can no longer remember the smell of your skin or which way your hair parts in the morning. This whole time forgetting you is what I’ve been most afraid of while simultaneously begging for it. Your voice used to tickle the pit of my stomach, but now I hardly know how to speak to you at all, hardly want to speak to you at all. I am has turned into I used to be. I used to be in love with you. I used to be infatuated with the idea of you. I used to think we’d go on like this forever. I used to think my heart was safe in your hands. I am no longer looking for shelter.
-tbrumm
Braveheart
You’re not nice enough to yourself…you never really have been. Even when the world saw you as stone cold and borderline cocky it wasn’t because you stood rock solid in confidence, it’s because you were empty and all of your insecurities were ricocheting in your rib cage, because you were dead inside; empty and freezing and barely surviving and the world so easily confuses cold with brave. But you’re not brave, you watch the cement as you walk because the light hurts your eyes and you’ve forgotten how to look directly at something so bold. You buy your pants in the next size up because any fabric holding onto your hips makes you regret what you ate for lunch and is yet another reminder that you never did look like the type of girl he always liked, as if you could ever forget. Brave hearts don’t spend the winter hibernating like you did, reaching for warmth from hundreds of miles away while shivering in an empty bed. Brave hearts are free and worth following, but you wear these chains like accessories, staying stagnant and a slave to your own sadness.
-tbrumm
tbrumm 