-Load the car and write the note-

Moving out was terrifying. I enjoyed the first few weeks in my apartment alone.
I was rarely alone when I was with my ex. I depended on him. To get to school, to get to work, to get to rehearsal, to eat, to have a place to sleep, etc, etc. I had to pay a price for all of that. Nothing comes for free.

-Grab your bag and grab your coat-

I remember leaving his house for the last time. I packed that morning as fast as humanly possible. I forgot a lot of things. He kept begging me not to leave, I kept begging to go. I got dressed in my own clothes for the first time in a hot minute. Normally I just grabbed his because mine were always trapped behind the headboard.
I didn’t know it was the last. His hand curved into my inner thigh, the country road we had driven on for nearly two years rolled by until it disappeared into the highway. He dropped me off and my parents greeted him warmly, and hugged him and I think I realized then I hated him.

-Tell the ones that need to know-

My best friend and I got together a little after I got home so I could tell them everything about my ex and I.
And this guy I just met.

Their mouth was agape the whole conversation. I told them I didn’t think my ex was a bad guy, Cole said that was because I haven’t experienced a good one yet.I told them about this guy I met and there was hope in their eyes.

What if this guy was lulling me in with false promises like everyone else before?

-We are headed north.-

We broke up. He left me. I finally reached out to this guy and… the rest is just confetti.

-One foot in and one foot back-

I open up a little just to resend everything I just said. I’ve been told before that I’m “too much” and yet somehow, “not good enough,” at the same time.

I had two people I adored when I was growing up. They were my best friends. They weren’t the best of friends.

One of them called my self harm scars “stupid people scars.” Said I was only doing it for attention, though I never intended for anyone to see them. If I wanted to be effective I should just full-send it and make the little white lines vertical. I opened up to him only for him to say I was too much and that I was crazy and occasionally throw it back in my face.

-But it don’t pay to live like that-

When we were in high school, he caught my ex hitting me, he stepped in and tried to get me out.
When I was going through the worst of my disordered eating habits, he bought me food and sat with me.
He confused me. I believed in my heart he loved me. I still do. I think he just didn’t know how to love right. When he met his boyfriend and they fell in love, I think the two of them learned from one another. They’re still very happy together in their own place. We don’t talk, but, the last time we did, he said that he hopes I get everything I want out of life. And that he’ll be there. His boyfriend and him are planning to get engaged.
I think my boyfriend and I could be like that.

-So I cut ties and I jumped the track-

When we stopped talking, my best friend and I got closer and I got happier. Stress about extracurriculars and homework was all I had to worry about. Life was good. My senior year of highschool was one of my favorite periods of my life.
The other is right now.

-Never to return-

-Oh, Brooklyn, Brooklyn, take me in-

I met my boyfriend at a summer camp. We were both counselors. The counselors were all talking about this, that and the other. I initially wanted to get out of there, but this guy I had just met started talking about video games designed to be difficult.
I was on a Fear and Hunger kick, I hoped he would know the game. He didn’t. He said it reminded him of another game, I said that it reminds of a book, and so on and so on.
Suddenly thirty minutes pass and I’m sitting on the table in the makeup room talking candidly about life, books, video games and art with someone who might as well have been a stranger. But I was hooked.

He looked at me with a kind of recognition that you don’t see terribly often. Like he already knew me. The strange thing was, I felt like I knew him too.

-Are you aware of the shape I’m in?-

When I started having panic attacks at camp, I was fucking embarrassed. I had kept my composure in front of strangers all my life, until right then.

He came in— and I guess he wasn’t really a stranger. He coaxed me through it, though anxiously because he was paranoid about how people would take it. Us— in a room— completely alone.
I could not help that I was drawn to him. I let him see that I was not infallible. I felt closer to him every second we spent together.

Is that wrong of me?

-My hands, they shake, my head, it spins-

We were watching the play at Pocket Sandwich Theater and I knew I needed to make that leap. Just to take his hand.
My brain kept screaming this could just be another game. He could be saying all these sweet words and writing all these beautiful poems just to lure me in.

It wouldn’t be the first time. My first boyfriend told me his dream was to be a teacher with me, and that students would think we were adorable.
He told me after we had been dating for nearly a year that his dream was to take my virginity.

My most recent ex told me his dream was to go to Chicago and be a famous actor, and to have me waiting at the stage door for him.
But what about my stage door? Would he have ever shown up?

But my heart was so sure with this guy what I wasn’t sure with the others.
I could actually see a couple years ahead. It was messy and a little undefined, but the vision was there.

I took his hand. The momentary shock as my fingers laced around his, those beautiful grey and blue eyes widened like I had done something unfathomable.
The smile he gave me, as he wrapped his other hand around ours.

-Oh, Brooklyn, Brooklyn, take me in-

-When at first I learned to speak-

My mother said I learned to talk before I walked. My first word— well to be more accurate it was a sentence.
“Where is it?”
Ironic with my ADHD.

-I used all my words to fight-

I was a terrible person as a middle schooler. I was filled with rage and hormones and everything that I once knew changed.
I was filled with depression that I didn’t understand was depression.

I pushed my friends as far as they would go. I felt so guilty every time that I’d grovel and apologize. Rinse. Repeat. Suddenly not a little girl anymore. I hated myself. My friends didn’t understand. I hated them too.

I bullied, and I seethed, and I said things that I should have never thought, much less said. Much less believed to be true.

-Ah, but it’s just a waste of time-

My best friend and I went to a cabin out in the country for their birthday.
One night, we sat in the bed, and we cried. I apologized for everything I had done when I was a middle schooler. They did too.
We hugged.

-Yeah, it’s such a waste of time-

-Three words that became hard to say-

Fear is a nasty thing. Anxiety and depression too. It’s unfair that your own mind can want to not be alone, yet force you to be lonely. Then yell at you for it.

“I need help.”

Those became so hard.

“I miss you.”

I say those often to a lot of different people. My friends back home, my kids, my boyfriend. I miss them all, truly.

-I and Love and You-

I struggled to say it to my boyfriend when I knew I should’ve. It happened at the right moment that’s true and I’m very grateful for how perfect that first moment was. But—

There was a night where we were playing Minecraft together and I almost said it.

He was so excited about the house. He noticed all the little red details I put everywhere for him. He said no one had ever put such thought into surprising him with something.
I almost said, “it’s because I love you, duh.”
But I didn’t.

-I and Love and You-

I wanna be able to look in the mirror and not examine it. I want to see my features and smile.
I want to enjoy my face reflecting back at me.
I want to like it, to the point that I don’t even acknowledge it.

This morning I got up to take a shower before class. I peeled off my boyfriend’s shirt, and neatly folded it next to the sink. I looked up to grab a hair tie and—

I liked the way my body looked. I like the curvature of my waist, the shape of my breasts, the way my hair fell behind my shoulders even though it was a bit unkempt.

I liked my face. That’s the hard thing to like about myself. As an actor you spend so much of your time examining and painting your face. As an autistic person, I used to practice making facial expressions in the mirror to look more natural. I am so used to my face. Normally, I try to avoid staring at it.
But I looked at the color of my eyes, their asymmetrical shape, the fullness of my lashes—
I looked at my lips, redder and a bit drier than normal, they’re always a little more red after my boyfriend leaves cause his scruff scratches me—
I looked at my nose, I usually hate it. But today I thought, “I look nice.”

I think— I think everyday I get closer to it. Not by much, and it’s never consistent but it has happened more and more as the years go by.

I’m so close to looking in the mirror and saying it.

-I and Love and You-