to all the friends i've loved before
grief for the living
Trigger warning: this piece discusses consent and lack thereof
For my uni friends: this is not about anyone we know, don’t worry! For my high school friends: I’m sure you can put this together.
I’ve always believed that love makes for the best photos, and my god did you look beautiful through my camera.
When I picture you, I picture us sneaking out of school assembly. I picture climbing the fire escape of the co-op across the street and scaling the shingles to get to the very top. I picture us atop the roof, watching the sky roll while the rest of our classmates watch flickering artificial lights. I picture one time when we were cloud gazing when we watched an eagle crash directly into the building opposite us. We looked over at each other, first shocked, then laughing. We laughed until our laughter turned into the realization that school was almost over. Reminiscing on all our previous iterations of our tradition, you turned to me and said, “I want it to always be like this.”
What do you do when someone you love so much grows up into someone you can’t even like?
When we lost the roof, we found the magical combination that is a park and a bottle of wine. There was not a thought on my mind I wouldn’t share with you when we were together. As the wine bottle emptied, what I told you became less coherent but no less honest. We reminisced on our past just as much as we planned to be in each other's futures, just as much as we caught up on each other’s presents.
The first time I noticed you did not understand consent was on a hill at the ravine near my house. It was our usual setup: park, music, wine. This time, unusually, you pressed your body up against mine. You did not ask, and I suddenly could not speak up to say no, so I resigned and leaned into you. I feared the endless possibilities where you did not take my “no” well and opted to not take those chances. I could not bring myself to see you for a month after.
I shared my first legal drink with you. On my 19th birthday, you biked all the way to my neighbourhood so I did not have to spend my first COVID birthday alone. You made sure I spent the whole day laughing. On your bike ride home, the downhill trajectory mixed with the wine we shared resulted in you tumbling off your bike and rolling all the way down a hill. When you got up, the first thing you did was text me the story because you knew I would laugh at that too.
The second time I noticed you did not understand consent, I was on the phone with Tristan. Tristan angrily relayed a conversation she had with you where you said, “I don’t ask people before I kiss them because I don’t want to ruin the moment.” Behind your back, we called you a child, an idiot, a dumbass.
The moment our friendship ended was the moment that Tristan told me about the first woman who came forward to say that you violated her consent. I made Tristan stay up all night with me, talking it through over and over and over. Without coordination, we both picked up kitchen knives and began puncturing holes in the giant, empty cardboard box that was in Tristan’s living room. As we let out our anger, she earnestly asked me if there were any signs we had missed, any way we could have predicted it getting this bad.
When I picture you, I picture the last text messages we exchanged.
Me: This topic is very difficult for me to talk about/ to talk about with you. As we have not talked, you do not know what is informing my decisions nor do you know how I perceive the situation.
You: May you live in a world as black and white as you seem to think it is.
When I picture you, I picture it all. But I want you to be who you were, who I thought you were. I wanted you to always be how I saw you on the roof. I do not want to know who you are now, but I grieve for who you once were to me.
Our friendship ending was not a choice as much as it was a vanishment. Trust, comfort, comradery, security, respect — the ingredients of a friendship, ceasing to exist.
I am left with fragments of a friendship — rough-edged pieces that don’t make sense anymore, that make me feel empty and confused when I recall them. Our trust may be gone, but there is love left, and memories, worry, affection…
I don’t know what to do with all the love I have for you. The songs that I can only hear in your voice. The jokes I still make that are actually yours. God, what about all the playlists? What should I feel when I share our old stories with new people? Do I give a preface? Will they ask me about you? How do I want them to know you?
I don’t know how to process losing someone who is still alive. I feel an urge to control you, to turn back time to who you were to me. I want you to be someone who you aren’t. I want to pull apart my memories of you and put them into two different bodies — one I can love and one I can hate (the black-and-white world you think I live in). But if I dwell on that for longer than a minute, I realize it’s all you — the good and the bad. The parts I hate about you now were still a part of you when I did not see them. The parts I love about you are tangled up in (and not-so-distinct from) what I don’t like. I no longer want to know you in the past. I no longer want to know you in the present. I don’t know what I want with you.
I thought writing this would help me get a sense of what I want, or at least help me find a silver living. I’ve thought about every possibility: ones where we talk again, ones where we don’t; ones where you change, ones where you don’t. None of them relieve the feeling I feel. You are gone, and everything is worse now.1
I’ve always known I don’t like change, and changing how I feel about you has been one of the worst. You have a long future ahead of you without me — may you change for the better.
Uh, oh, another heavy zozblog entry — this one even heavier than the last! What happened to the happy-go-lucky zozblog you were promised?
I really wanted my sophomore zozblog entry to be a silly/goofy one. I tried! I Swear, I Really Wanted to Make a 'Silly' One but This Is Literally the Way the Wind Blew Me This Time.
I was watching “One Day” with Lunchbox, Subhidoobie, and Sparky Beans Solomon, when I saw a scene of the two main characters sitting in a park drinking a bottle of wine. It felt a little too much like a scene from my own life, and I started to miss **** for the first time in a long while, which made me really confused! Since I told myself I would use this like a diary, and I think a benefit of diaries is processing emotions (diary fans lmk if I’m right), I sat down and gave it a whirl. I wrote a lot more than I anticipated, which is neat. Anyone who is abiding by my request from my last post to psychoanalyze me, pls let me know what this means.
I told myself I would wait for some silly/goofy inspiration to strike before I published this and use the extra time to proofread before I sent it to y’all. But I hate proofreading things! And this is MY diary. So here we are.
poll time poll time poll time poll time poll time
Send me silly/goofy inspo! Email me back! Comment on this! Text me! Talk to me face to face! Call me! Whatever suits you.
Kisses!
Zozzy
free churro reference for the bojack fans in the audience