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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

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

Take care 

Today I celebrate one year of self-discovery, 12 months of wringing the hate from my heart drop by drop, 52 weeks of mental growth, 365 days worth of the strength used to get out of bed each and every one of those mornings, 525, 949 minutes of pushing forward and away from this exact day one year ago. And here I sit, challenging myself to a year of digging deeper, looking closer, and seeing clearer.

-tbrumm

less is not always more 

“What would make you perfectly content with your life?”

I didn’t know the answer or where to find it. I felt then as I do now, that I could have the entire world in the palm of my hand and still, not only want, but expect more. Perhaps that’s how we should all feel in our twenties, maybe it’s that ambition that gets us through our initiation into adulthood, and that may also very well have been the demise of every romantic relationship I’ve ever had. 

-tbrumm

the snozberries tastes like snozberries

Every time he hurts you there is just enough forgiveness and making up to fill the time between this betrayal and the next. There is always a next. And you think that by forgiving him you’re breaking new ground, you’re getting to a part of him no one else ever has and so you dig through dirt hoping you might uncover an artifact that will be worth the past couple years of your life. He has swallowed you whole and you swim around in the word vomit while picking out the words and phrases you like most; only focusing on the ones that make it hurt a little less to know that this is the kind of love you think you deserve. You’re drowning. You fill your pockets with the bullshit that comes out of his mouth and you look up from the ocean floor wondering how you got here. He says this is the best he’s got and you decide it’s not so bad holding your breath as he tells you how beautiful you are when you’re blue in the face.

-tbrumm

Blue tides pullin’ me under

Every morning I wake up and I tell myself, “Today, you’ll be stronger.” And I repeat it over and over in my mind until I’m almost certain that I wouldn’t follow him to hell, not even if he asked me with his lips. I anxiously wait for his name to appear so that I can demonstrate my new found strength, a stone cold silence. A silence that says “I don’t want to” rather than “I can’t”. But just seeing his name reminds me of how I wake up alone and shivering and how warm it is standing in the eye of his man made hurricane even if I’m there drowning. And so every day I fail. Every day I accept his invitation-stripping myself of every cold weather accessory, every emotional barrier, every band-aid covering old wounds and I lay myself in front of him completely bare; for him to love, to criticize, to miss, to place blame on, to lust after, to laugh at, to step on to reach higher ground – whatever he needs me for, just as long as he needs me.

-tbrumm

Quarter of a century

Four November’s ago I was riding around Detroit in a pink hummer limo celebrating my life. I thought that at 21 years old I had lived an entire life and I spent that birthday celebrating the Midwestern successes I was taught to be proud of: college graduation in the spring, maintaining friendships that started in adolescence, making my own car payment, etc. I thought I knew the world because I knew the ins and outs of the very small world I created for myself. Now, four years later, I look back and realize my life hadn’t even begun, that the world is infinitely larger than I could have imagined from the suburbia I grew up in. My life only began when I moved to New York. I was only beginning to test the waters of a very deep well; one full of opportunity, new friends, different cultures, delicious food, inspiration on every street corner, and for me, an endless supply of humility. New York has a way of reminding you that you aren’t shit, that your 21st birthday was merely the dusk before the dawn. There are millions of other people sharing this city with you and they’re all equally, if not more, talented than you. Likely, they worked just as hard, were just as brave and courageous, and left just as much behind in order to be here, in this city, living the life they dreamed about as children, the same way you did. So here’s to everyone who dreamed big, to myself for having 25 years worth of fight inside of me, and to all the lessons I’ve yet to learn.

-tbrumm

O

The thing about sadness is that it follows you wherever you go. It’s a part of you. There’s no bed, no city, no person that can take it out of you and you sure as hell can’t out run it. You have to hold its hand. Wrap yourself in your sadness when your cold, get to know it. Keep it close even when you’re happy. It’ll make everything that much sweeter. Once you’ve grown accustomed to it you’ll grow within it, along side it, and eventually out grow it all together. But you can’t force a square into a circle. It’s a process of transformation. Give it time.

-tbrumm