I watched The OA in one swoop a few weekends ago, and can we talk?
It was not what I was expecting at all from the very start to the very end. It was broken and alive and it left me with no words at all to explain how I was feeling.
I walked into work the next day and threatened everyone with extinction if someone didn't watch it because I needed someone else to feel what I was feeling.
How's that for an intro?
Scribbling poetry in between classes.
There is something stirring. And I don't know how to define it. I've been hearing the magic of the universe and it sounds so silly that I laugh at myself.
But no really.
Maybe it's the B vitamins my mother bought me. Maybe it's the girl scout cookies. Maybe it's the way spring snuck up on me so quickly. It's hard to say.
But love, there is magic about. I know you can feel it.
Life after The OA
The OA touches on so many things for me, a lot of questions I have about why we are here. In the very first episode, the main character speaks of the invisible self. She seems both heartbroken and in awe that our physical bodies, our outward selves are on such prominent display.
I wonder, sometimes, how I will know if my invisible self is enough. How will I understand if I am who I'm supposed to be?
Maybe these things are the wrong questions. Maybe the right question is no question at all.
I've made new friends this year. I've had good conversations. I've hygge'ed and kalsarikännit'ed and raged and bent and laughed and cried and felt crazy and alive all at once. It's been both a good and complicated year so far.
I want to know what your dream is.
Or your nightmare.
Here is mine:
I wake up outside. It's night and I am barefoot in my pajamas. I feel the grass on my feet. I see the sky above me but there are no stars.
I have to get home. I know this, but I don't know where I am. And I am crouching low to the ground.
I walk. I walk so far and I come to a house. It is always the same house. I go in and walk around as if it were my house. It isn't though, and I begin to feel the ache.
I don't belong here.
These words are not for you
Do you feel like you belong? I've spent a lot of time feeling like I didn't belong in my own life.
I am not for everyone. I do not do all things well. I'm a shit housekeeper and sometimes I'm really depressed.
I'm tempted now to begin all my writing with "These words are not for you" and those who are still here, congratulations, you are my people and I see you.
We probably have the same nightmares, you and I. We probably have the same things that light us up too. Crazy things like obsessions with miniatures or things pretending to be other things.
I'll bet you have a story that goes like this:
When I was a child, my mother's friend had a lamp that dripped oil down string around the outside. It looked like rain. I am obsessed with finding a lamp like this, but no one ever knows what I'm talking about. It is my fountain of youth. It is my El Dorado.
I'm pretty sure I saw it in an alternate dimension. The one where Led Zeppelin sings that one song that I can't ever remember and not The Who, but people in this timeline laugh when I say that.
We are weird but we are wholly our ourselves. Holy ourselves.
My daughter is reading and drawing. My other daughter taught herself to write her name. I've learned to breathe before I explode in anger, and it's imperfectly working, but still.
Happy spring. Happy new life. Here's to my people.
I see you.
---
Like this post? You may also like: