Aggregate

23rd May, 2025

Tonight I feel that I am a reflection not just of the people I love, but also of the people I've been.¹

I find myself full of longing, aching, yearning for how things were in the past. There were many versions of me who were really fucking depressed, perhaps even the majority depending how you enumerate this.

But there's been so so many who were unashamedly happy too.

I miss how things were.

I miss just a few weeks ago, when I had a ring of people around me who I had never doubted loved me, who I could approach at any time and be assured of a hug and happiness. That this has changed is not their fault; I got so much shit to work through.

I feel loved again now, absolutely... but in a distinctly different way. Not worse. Not better. Perhaps a little more melancholy, at times. Just different. I'm grateful that we're all still together.

I miss a few months ago, when there was a particular friend in my life who I was certain I'd finally formed a connection with - a connection I later selfishly threw away in my rampant short-sightedness.

I'm still working to fix those mistakes, and god I hope we can. We kissed once, had one lovely comfortable night of coziness, and honestly I hope we reach that point again one day.²

I miss last year, when I felt I had purpose and meaning, working on a project with likeminded people that was probably always doomed from the start, but had so much genuine potential to make the world a better place if we somehow overcame that.

I made plenty of mistakes there too, and as a consequence I feel like I've been aimlessly drifting ever since. I need a purpose.

I miss my fiance, terribly. This one especially feels... immoral, when I now have a girlfriend who I love just as much as I loved her, and yet I am still, partially, fixated on the past.

18 months later, and my life is still full of reminders of that relationship. I scarcely go a day without thinking of it in some form. I already rebuilt myself from the fallen pieces of that breakup; to completely expunge all traces of it would mean breaking myself all over again, reducing my life to spartan scarcity and rebuilding everything I am from scratch. Not just physical objects, although there's still plenty of those. I mean memories, opinions, interests, music, my feelings about the colours blue and yellow, my sense of morality, a significant portion of my worldview.

Such are the reminders that a soulmate³ leaves on you. And unfortunately, I almost like myself sometimes. Certainly my girlfriend does. I trust her. I don't want to start over right now.

I miss all of the friends I've left scattered in the past. I dream about them still; some have left almost as many marks as my fiance did. Some of those I treasure. Others I'm still working through in therapy. They all matter, one way or another. I miss my people.

I miss my parents, and my siblings, and the relationship I had with my grandfather. I miss all my cousins.

I miss the online friends, and how their presence in my life fundamentally changed me for the better, brought me closer to myself.

I miss when I could write a story without effort.

I miss when I trusted people until repeatedly proven otherwise.

I miss when just standing in the rain was enough to solve all my problems, for a little while. These wounds run so much deeper than the rain can touch now.

- - -

But we don't get to go backwards.

As a friend told me tonight: It's not stupid to ache for the past, but it is perhaps unproductive. Things either stay the same, or they change - but only in one direction. Even if they change back to a facsimile of how they were, the circumstances will always be a little different. Context, history, perspective.

So it's a bit pointless to ache. And yet here I am, indulging it with this entry. Getting it out.

The important thing is that I have hope - something that I pray has come through in subtext. I believe in my friends. They believe in me, I think, and I'll trust them.

Things will change. For worse, certainly. For better, sometimes.

Most often, just to something different. Alas, it'd be a boring life otherwise. The emotional equivalent of living in the same bland little gentrified inner suburb for your whole life. I'd rather slum it for a bit, and be more complete for the experience.

I wanna be grateful for what I have now, and the future I'm striving for, just as much as I ache for the past. They can coexist.

I love y'all. Thanks for reading.

💚💜💛