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Anneli Xie
2020/01/20
tags:
#diary

justifying comfort

I constantly fall in and out of writing. still working on it becoming habit, usual, ordinary, careless. again ;

my time at home flew by. nine months just like that. being back by my wooden desk at wellesley, surrounded by my half-unpacked belongings, those nine months feel so far away. I really feared coming back here, feared it like a child fears the dark (irrationally but deeply), feared it so tangibly and so anxiously that my eczema flared up again. I feared it because home was everything that I could have ever wished for. it was comfortable, I was happy. I got to spend every single day with aleks – fall asleep by his side, wake up to his snoring – and we got to truly live together: grocery shop, make dinner, practice tkd, climb, study (him in the kitchen, I in the living room), and fight, which of course, is different when you're in the same physical space and not 5000km apart. some fights I would sulk the entire evening and others I would slam the door in his face, but it felt... real(?) our relationship grew infinitely out of that. my relationship to my parents became so much better and for the first time in years I felt like I could be myself, always and everywhere. and leia, of course. I got to care for her like she was mine (first), letting her snuggle up next to me while I was working, hugging her to sleep, burying my nose in her fur to breathe in her smell. we haven't had a dog in a long time and having one back in my life is something I'm endlessly grateful for. it sounds silly saying things like this about a dog, but leia truly helped me in many ways. her presence will forever be calming, her paws moving around on the clinker floor of the kitchen, her jumping back into our bed after her morning run, her sitting in our laps while playing board games. and all the while trying to figure out how to let her know. or figuring out if she did already know(?) that I love her and just how much.

during our last family meal at home, my mom asked aleks if he is going to be homesick while we are here. because it's his first time being away from home for so long. and I wondered why she didn't ask me the same thing, and she just replied "why would you miss home? aleks is with you," like aleks was home and like that was the most obvious thing in the world. and it is true, aleks is home, and I am so endlessly grateful for everything he's done to be with me this semester, here in the US. I'm constantly wondering how I will ever re-pay him, bawling my eyes out just thinking about how much he has saved me, is saving me, will save me.

–

when 2019 turns into 2020 aleks and I are up in the helsingkrona tower with johan and his friends. the countdown has started but I lost aleks just as we went out on the balcony. "four," and I see him far away in the crowd, "three," pushing myself past tall blonde guys in suits, "two," his hand, "one," by his side. and fireworks. spending new years with aleks is always special because new year's eve 2015 was the first time we kissed. I remember how nervous I was in his vicinity, how I would glance at him from across the table, how I just wanted to be close to him. I often cry when I think about those times. they fill me with feelings I can't put into words and thus will never explain and maybe that's why they only show themselves in tears. I remember waking up next to him on new year's day, my head resting on his shoulder, tracing his jawline with my fingertips and running my fingers through his hair. it was sunny. and we laid there for hours before getting up. whenever I think of a sunny sunday morning, a lazy one where the sun is peeking through the blinds stroking my cheeks, it is always that one.

–

//

two months ago I wrote:

it's the time of the year again when I'm constantly tired. the sun never really rises so it never really gets light out. the days all blend together in low clouds and yellow street lamp-light and that gray gloom smothering the city. it's really uncomfortable because it feels like I never truly wake up – or maybe rather as if I've been up for too long. the scenery never changes and for those days that it does – those when the sun peak through my windows in the early morning, or when the afternoon sun hits our white curtains making them shimmer – I flourish. I love the sun and I wish I saw it more often, but rain will continue to smother us for the rest of the season, dead leaves drenched in plant mist; Leia's paws continuously wet.

autumn transitioned too quickly. there was never the good part. it went from sunny days at the beach to that creeping feeling that cold humid air has on your skin, over what felt like one day. my mind has been busy but my days have not.

in early november, I set the alarm for 4 am. aleks and I are going to stockholm. we bike through a city still sleeping, aleks' bike swooshing over the wet pavement, me on his bike rack with my hands tucked underneath his down jacket, my cold hands touching his warm stomach making him shriek. we're going to stockholm and our train leaves at 5:10 am. it's freezing. I sleep the whole way there but am still tired when we arrive. I am going to the embassy to renew my visa and we want to spend a day in the city. the embassy is as intimidating as always but my interview takes only two minutes and once again I feel so grateful for being born Swedish. aleksander has sat down at SR to drink coffee and I'm mad at him for some reason but I can't remember why. we walk to slussen. I want to visit fotografiska – it's my favorite gallery of all time – but fail to realize I've only ever been there when I've been 18 or under and therefore could enter for free. now we're in our 20s and have to pay the 135kr fee and that's too expensive considering all I've paid towards my visa and this trip in the first place and so we've walked all the way through the slussen reconstruction for nothing. we want to get to södermalm but the stairs are closed down and we end up taking a huge detour. it's raining and the holes in my shoes let my feet get wet and they hurt from all the walking and aleks and I decide that rain makes us miserable and I dream of us settling in a country where the weather doesn't ruin it all. we end up in a climbing gym and then things feel a little better.

a week later, I'm finishing up my last art history paper for the semester: a paper about the theme of nature in scandinavian design. to be completely honest; I stopped going to class after third lecture. it reminded me of times at UWC when going to class felt like a waste of time and I felt like I could be a better teacher to myself than any of my teachers and ended up getting an academic suspension and a threat that my parents were to receive the news of me skipping out on school. although this time my mom encouraged me to stop going to lecture and the only comment I got on my last paper was "Very good!" so what was the point anyway?

and so I haven't been to school much this semester but rather spending a lot of solo time in front of my computer, trying to knack out different projects I have in mind as if my mind is spread too thin to actually focus on just one thing. I want to become a better writer, I want to write more coherent pieces, I want to explore prose and poetry, I want to be able to express myself more concisely and more consistently. I want to become a better artist, I want to learn digital illustration, I want to pick up watercolors again, I want to have the same fearless feeling towards art as I did in high school, I want to sketch on a daily basis, I want to be able to visualize my thoughts, I want to create.

/

I think a lot about who I could've been which is the most unproductive thing to do because who I could've been is not who I can choose to be because my circumstances are different now because people change always and consistently.

one evening aleks and I take a bath and we spend a lot of time talking about who we've wanted to be and who we are now and what could've been and what couldn't. I think about my little brother and how much I can see myself in him and how much I wish he doesn't become like me. and so I think a lot about my changing identity throughout my coming of age- years. when I was in his age, 10, I was just like him. I wanted to be like everyone else so I started despising the foods that my friends also disliked, even if I actually liked them. one of my clearest memories from that age was when we had to fill in a survey about ourselves for our teachers, and it included things like what we liked to do and what our favorite animal was and what our favorite food was: play neopets, dogs, and cauliflower w/ pork. the last one made my teacher chuckle and ask me what I meant by that. I told her it was a chinese dish to which she said "OK" and laughed at me. I remember feeling so ashamed that I hadn't put down something like meatballs or spaghetti bolognese or anything else that was normal; a feeling I let go of then but is one I still remember now. I just wanted to be normal, and sometimes today, that's a feeling that still persists.

–

back to now.