Creative Non-fiction

No place I’d rather be

A moment to live for: it’s Christmas time in Detroit and I’m sitting in my best friends living room located in a 1920s apartment on Jefferson that her and her boyfriend rent together. He throws St. Paul and The Broken Bones on the record player and he, his two friends, Sarah, and myself all decide that “Call Me” is the song we need to hear right in this moment. In the moments that follow the bluesy tune dances on our ear drums while we pass a bowl full of weed around the room which I have Sarah light for me every time it lands on me and we sip Soft Parade out of bottles that are still wearing the winter chill they caught during the walk from the car to the building and I look out the window at the Detroit river and all that Windsor, Canada offers just on the other side and I remember all of the times Sarah and I crossed the border as teenagers to drink and dance in bars and have sing alongs with homeless men playing acoustic guitars on the street, a street we’d walk down hand in hand once the jäger hit us. And I realize that’s just one of many streets I’ve gone down with her by my side and it’s no different here on Jefferson, or on Broadway in Soho, or on a dirt road outside of a stilted mansion on the island of Kauai; Sarah always reminds me that I’m right where I need to be.

-tbrumm

People leave and love fades

There’s a difference between being sad and missing someone. Sometimes we’re sad because we don’t miss them at all. We’re sad to have realized the reality is that we’re better off without that thing we thought we couldn’t live without, didn’t want to live without. We’re sad that we no longer believe ourselves when we say that it was or will be worth it. We’re sad to have to agree with our friends when they say we deserve better. Because we didn’t want better, we wanted what we had. Mostly we’re sad that somebody or something yanked us from the fairytale we insisted on living in and introduced us to the cold and lonely world of reality, where people leave and love fades.

-tbrumm

Writers block

I just stopped writing. There came a point where it hurt too much to let the pain travel all the way from my heart to my fingertips and on to a page. I didn’t want to dig that deep into myself, leaving a hole I’d inevitably try to fill up again with something or someone I needed to learn to live without. Even if living without them felt like the closest I’ve ever been to dying, it had to be done. So I swallowed my words and held on to my hurt just to know I had something nobody could take away from me.

-tbrumm

Lost and found

Inspiration comes from living, from getting out of your bed and into a dress you haven’t worn since before you knew love could strip you of so many things. Things like sexy dresses, a sense of humor, and the need for adventure, terrified of what might be at the other end of something as simple as a good laugh. But you find your way back. You find your way to a new restaurant, a new hair cut, to an old view with a new set of eyes. You’ll see new things in old spaces and you’ll realize the world didn’t stop while you holed up to mourn your losses; it kept going. You have to keep going. Go far, go hard, and when you’re feeling really lost, go back to where you started.

-tbrumm

Warm water

I like to take steaming showers. I fill all of the cracks in the bathroom door and I close the window to seal the room shut. I turn the left knob of the faucet as far as I can without it leaving marks on my skin as it falls from the shower head. I sit with my back to the spout, pull my knees in, wrap my arms around my shins, and rest my chin on my knee caps. I sit like that until the steam is so dense there isn’t an inch of the room that isn’t covered in it. The room is all filled up. I’m all filled up. I start to feel light headed, all the energy sucked from my body. I know I’m ready. My body always feel sluggish as I use the sides of the tub to pull myself to my feet. When I turn the left knob back to the right it makes a screeching noise similar to the way I feel when I think about him loving someone else. I wrap myself in a towel and race to my bed to get under the blankets before the warmth fades, competing with the memories of all the ways in which loving him left me freezing.

That’s how I fight the loneliness…with heat. The kind of warmth my body ached for each and every time he betrayed me.

-tbrumm

Beauty is in the details

I think sunsets are beautiful. People too. But what I find really beautiful -truly noteworthy- is the tone of voice in which my nephews call my brother “Daaad”, the lengths my mother would go to fix the broken parts of my heart, the way my Papaw’s eyes light up when he’s laughing at his own jokes or at a memory from his youth, my step dad’s smile when he’s in Key West or eating a mango, my Auntie P’s face when she looks at her children, how at peace my Grandma Flo looks sitting on her porch on Virginia Street, the way my Dad comes to life when singing an old blues tune in his shed, how tightly Grandma Bonnie hugs her grandchildren and even those children that are not blood related to her. True beauty goes beyond vibrant colors or a body type.

-tbrumm

If there are boundaries…

I really thought it would break my heart every time I heard it. I truly believed that every time the beat dropped and Sam Smith sang, “Now I’ve got you in my space,  I won’t let go of you” I’d see his face looking over at me from the other side of the couch while he wrapped his arms around my calves and danced with his shoulders the way he always did. It was one of the many times in my life I wanted to jump outside of myself because I felt too good, as if my body was conditioned to contain only so much joy. The Chicago winter kept it cold outside, but there was warmth in that song, in the hope that he’d latch on to me. It started to play at SoulCycle so I closed my eyes as I expected my heart to pull me from the bike. But it’s not cold here in New York, not right now. And it surely wasn’t cold in that room, and Halle told the class it was okay, that it would be okay, and that sometimes that’s all we needed to hear to push through. My head started swaying, my heart  started pounding, my lips turned up – finally, I lost myself in the beat rather than in him. I opened my eyes to see Halle whipping her head back and forth, hair flailing in every direction, hands pounding the handlebars. The sweat on her body glistened in the low-light and her energy filled the entire room; it filled all of the empty spots inside of me. Her movement said she loved the song, herself, that moment, this life and that whatever it may bring she was ready for it. And I figured if she could be brave enough to let life happen to her, I could be bold enough to forget you happened to me.

-tbrumm

Remember to let it burn

I want you to remember that your definition of happiness is not universal. That skies are not always blue, but gray can be just as beautiful. That you can never miss something you never had and to find comfort in knowing you were not, and will not always be, alone. That no taste, no smell, no sound is the same to you as it is to others and that in itself is a beautiful thing. I need you to remember how small you are, but how big your voice is. Remember that a passion burns inside of you for a handful of different things and with that you can blaze a path to a life you love waking up to. Burn, baby, burn.

 

-tbrumm

The first step is admitting you have a problem.

You believed in the way he made you feel, addicted to how good it felt to have pieces of him running through your veins. You were caught in the thrill, in the adrenaline. The way people get excited for roller coasters to drop so that they can climb their way to the top of a big scary hill again, you were like that when your heart dropped out of your chest; looking forward to the part where he put it back where it belonged. You picked up the pieces of the things he broke while he told you how good you were at it, and you swam in that back-handed compliment. You broke yourself down to the point you believed there was art in the way you tirelessly put your relationship back together. You loved the way his love made your taste buds tingle, so much he was all you consumed. You got high on how summer smelt when it was laced with him. And here you are, an addict, addicted to a love you always hoped he might share with you but never actually got a hit of.

-tbrumm