“Does such a thing as ‘the fatal flaw,’ that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? I used to think it didn’t. Now I think it does. And I think that mine is this: a morbid longing for the picturesque at all costs.”

Donna Tartt, The Secret History

The past month and a half of my life has perhaps been the most tumultuous period I have ever experienced. Beginning a new position that I am still unsure of accompanied with the stress of moving somewhere I’d scarcely imagined myself living has my head spinning incessantly. There doesn’t seem to be a moment to sit, to breathe, to think, to write, but I’ve done my absolute best.

I feel a loneliness I am unused to. I’m getting my first taste of living alone, and it is bitter. I assumed that I would love the freedom of no company, but the constant silence is suffocating. I feel like I’m slipping away from myself. I try to fill up as much of my time with other people as I possible can, but there is not a friend or a lover or a parent to be present in every viable moment. Eventually I will have to settle in and accept that it is just me here.

I am still optimistic about giving romance another shot. It does not come without its trials, primarily those I battle alone within my own head, but it is worth it insofar. My biggest hurdle is getting the terrible thoughts I plague myself with out of my mind and into the relationship for some sort of reassurance; I find it impossible to explain my feelings because they’re completely nonsensical. I know them, and they know me, and I should not worry about anything else. The distance is proving to be trickier than I expected it to. Having participated in a long-distance relationship before, I thought I would know exactly how this would feel. It is infinitely worse. Knowing that they are so close yet so distant leaves me craving them at odd hours, upset over nothing fixable. The next time that I see them, I will find it impossible to let them go and I will have to do it anyways.

Conquering my own impossible until the next time we speak,

G.D.