Dream
But you weren't there
We planned to eat breakfast together
And I brought you breakfast tacos
It was familiar
It was cozy
It felt regular -
As if this was something we did every Sunday
And when I got there I noticed how full your house was of all your stuff
And just how many things you owned
And everything was everywhere
Not in any unusual way,
I just noticed how much of it there was -
Everywhere -
In every nook and cranny
And I thought -
Wow, that's a lot of stuff
And I didn't see you
But you're always home
So it's not like you could have gone somewhere
And I got scared for a second
Because you're old
And I thought, "Oh no"
Because I didn't want to be the one to find the body
And I thought, "Oh don't be silly"
But as I walked through the rooms so full of stuff and so empty of you
Through the thick yellow carpet
Through the stuffy air
Through the buzz of the air conditioner
I remembered
You weren't there
I remembered
It was my responsibility to go through everything
I remembered
I didn't want to
I remembered
There was so much
I remembered
There was too much
I remembered
You weren't there because
I remembered
You were dead
And then I woke up
But I never drank.
I woke up singing:
They will hold on to you
Hold on to the memories
They will hold on to you
Hold on to memories
They will hold on to you
And I will hold on to you
Please don't ever become a stranger
Whose laugh I could recognize anywhere"
from New Year's Day by Taylor Swift.
Today I am grateful for:
- Meeting new people
- Building new friendships
- Going new places
- Living my life
- Doing what I want
- Following the breadcrumbs of joy
- Free stuff
- Adventures
- Booster shots
- Vintage t-shirts
- Beautiful people
- People who show up
- People who text back
- People who respond
- People who are right here right now
- Tiny trains
- Flowers and trees and rivers and lakes
- Butterflies and buttercups
- Croissants
- Jacques and Damon
- Back porches
- Lawn chairs
- Hot tea
- Cinnamon Spice
- White tennis shoes
- The smell of chlorine and laundry and vanilla cinnamon sugar
- My grandmother and her love for Taco Bell, Church's and Long John Silvers. And how she would make me scrambled eggs and bundt cakes and how she'd make the sugar water glaze and her little chef salt shakers and her yellow plastic sugar cup and how her milk was always spoiled and her pantry full of stale cheeto puffs and spam and how I never understood how they made such tiny hot dogs and canned them. And that room no one ever went in. And how, no matter how slow she moved, she still moved. Her love for telenovelas and Spanish. Her plants. Her dog. The lions on her gate. Her rose bushes. Her driveway. Found hula hoops in the garage. Carpet in the garage. Jars of watermelon hard candies and candy corn and tiny chocolate bars and jelly beans and peeps and glass record tables and giant television sets that would surely kill someone if they ever fell and portraits of children and families that littered the walls and that green desk lamp and that desk that she must have used to write all those cards and her hand writing and her tiny sheets of Christmas wrapping paper and how she always gave me $1.08 to use at the dollar store and her love of tiny dollar store figurines and how it become my love of tiny figurines and the yellow plastic easter bunny bank on the top shelf in my closet and her smell of powder and some strange perfume I never knew and her pink tile walls and the heater by the toilet and her plush bath mats and the chair in her tub and how that was the warmest most safe place in the house. And the room I never saw in her house until she was dead.