i'm gonna dream about the time when i'm with you

I know he loves me when we cuddle and his fingertips lightly graze my knee.

I know he loves me when we're hiking through a slot canyon and he helps me up every boulder even though I can probably do it myself.

I know he loves me when he says that if someone had a gun to the dog's head and a gun to my head, he would choose me every time.

When he does the dishes all by himself and beams at me like a child.

When he can't keep his hands to himself.

When he says we can leave the gym before he's ready.

When he tickles my back or plays with my hair or rubs my feet.

When he offers to cook me dinner.

When he asks me what I want to watch on Netflix.

When he listens to me play piano.

When he says he loves listening to me play piano.

When he lets me read Harry Potter to him.

He kisses me softly when I'm wearing lipstick.

He says, "I do," every time I hand him his wedding ring.

He eats breakfast when I make it, even though he doesn't eat breakfast.

I knew my husband loved me when we knelt across the altar.

I knew my husband loved me when he told me he had to run to the restaurant's bathroom for an upset stomach and that he "might be in there awhile" when, really, he was calling my mother and his brother because he was so nervous to propose later that night.

I knew my husband loved me when he went to my parents' house and saw my dad cleaning his guns, but still asked for his blessing, even after my dad gave him a bullet and said he would use it if my husband ever hurt me.

I knew my husband loved me when he left in the middle of our biggest fight, got on the road to drive two hours home, but came back after an hour because he couldn't leave me that way.

I knew my husband loved me when we were laying on the couch at two in the morning after dating only a few weeks, and he leaned in and whispered, "I think I'm falling in love with you."

yesterday is long ago and far away

I don't know how to write about being happy.

For years, I poured my heart out on this blog. Well, I gave you most of it. The bad parts.

But now I'm happy, and I don't know what to say. I'm getting married, and I don't know what to say.

I don't want to write a post saying, "It gets better." Because I don't know what "better" is for you. Maybe what's good for me, won't be good for you.

But I'm happy, and I wanted to let you know that it got better for me.

I think high school was an okay time. I had friends that I saw every day and I went to easy classes and got mostly A's. But sophomore year was rough and junior year was rough and senior year was whatever. I don't know why, but I cried a lot in high school. I didn't have much to be sad about, but I cried because I needed to feel that. And that was also okay. It's alright to want to feel and not be able to and then just cry because you can.

High school is all for emotional experimentation.

But things got real after graduation. Summer wasn't a thing anymore and I had to learn to pay bills and live on my own. Everyone talked about sex like it was real, because they were really having it. Nobody was who they said they were in high school. And they all did drugs and drank alcohol and I always knew that stuff existed but I didn't really see it until then. It was the first time I didn't feel like a kid anymore.

So freshman year of college was rough. I still cried a lot. I didn't like where I spent my time or who I spent it with.

And then I got over myself. I told myself I didn't have to be around the things I didn't want to be around and I didn't have to feel the way I didn't want to feel. So I still loved the people I spent my time with, but I didn't spend my time doing the things they spent their time doing.

And then I was happy. Bills were easy to pay and I didn't mind living on my own and -- you better listen to this next thing because it's the biggest miracle of all -- I got the boy. The one I pined after through all of high school. I got him. I'm marrying him. And I'm happy.

I got what I wanted and it feels natural. Like my life was supposed to be this. Like it had never been any other way before. Like I deserve this. And I do. I've earned this.

There might be too many words in this post and not enough sense, but I think someone will read this and understand. And someone needs to hear this:

It got better for me. And I'm happy.

- S.H.

i'm like the tide in the deep blue

I'm not going to make excuses for my lack of writing.

I won't stand on stage and spout a whiny soliloquy to empty seats. I won't fill a monologue with writer's block or ugly words or no words. Because I have been writing. Not here, but somewhere; in my brain, on a page, in an essay stuffed somewhere on the bottom shelf of the desk in my small room in my small apartment.

Words have left my pen, my fingers, my mouth and flown to someone else--somewhere else. Letters and phrases jumbled into sentences that mean something or nothing are floating out in the galaxy, or maybe the next one over. (My roommate would want you to know that it's called Andromeda.) But the next one over is supposed to be colliding with this one in some odd billion years and so the words will probably be coming back for more. They will be disappointed when everything is ripped to rubble and a new space time continuum has formed instead. (I don't know if that's actually going to happen. I don't know what a space time continuum even is. I heard it from Futurama.)


(x)

All you really need to know, empty seats, is that I think I'm back for now. That's all.

- S.H.

with these revisions and gaps in history

The words rolled off of her tongue, and I swear it was sugar.

I mean, the complete bliss and giddiness and the things that come in between.

And I realized that I want that.  I want to be consumed by my girlish hormones and impossible fantasies.  Like, I want to create stories and thoughts and visions that fulfill some sort of longing for a boy who I find absolutely ravishing or some gross word like that.  It's whatever.

Because I realize that I don't have that now, even though I probably should.  I don't have that nervousness that captures your throat when you try to speak to him.  I don't have that fear of rejection that's completely irrational because you're pretty sure he really likes you, but, like, what if he doesn't?  Like, you know he's said it, but a lot of words have been said. 

I don't know, I don't think this makes sense.  Like, do you get it?  Am I being too literal here, or not literal enough?

I guess I just really want to know a boy who creates swarms of butterflies with his walk, with the curve of his lips.

And right now, I'm sorry, but that feeling is lacking.

- S.H.