prompt: remember a moment that’s both nostalgic and visceral. it can be old or new, but something that feels both vague and like you can still feel it in your skin, muscle, and bones. write about it however feels right.
When I first moved out, the first thing I wanted was food from home. I craved it like a starving animal, like I'd resort to killing without it. It took around a week, I think, before I finally got the chance. I made myself the same boxed macaroni and cheese my mom makes. It felt like home, and it was the first thing that had felt real since I had left it.
Two days ago, I told my partner I was going to kill myself. I didn't mean it, and I still don't know why I said it, or why I was so adamant about it. When my roommate heard, she found me resources and told me she cared about me. It was the first time it occurred to me that saying "I love you" isn't usually lip service.
I got my roommate a cookbook for her birthday, one of those novelty ones that's focused more on theme than practicality. Still, she made the effort to try making something from it: macaroni and cheese and pulled pork. I don't usually like barbecue sauce, and I would've chosen Kraft instead of Annie's, but I felt something new eating it-- like I'd recalled a memory from my childhood so early it felt like a dream. Like I'd made a new childhood memory at 23.
On my birthday, I told my friends I was doing bad. I was two drinks deep with a third glass halfway empty, and it felt like that was the only way I'd ever be able to tell them without the shame choking me to death. I must have been a mess, and the memory being so fuzzy is probably evidence toward that. Despite it, they were honest with me, and offered advice much better than I ever expected to recieve about depression. I hadn't considered until then that "you can talk to me about anything" might actually mean everything.
Last night, my friends dragged me out for dinner with them. I had planned to stay home, get high, rot... but I figured this would do me better (still got high, though). We went to a Korean restaurant, far too expensive for us to really eat at, so we got four appetizers and split them instead. I didn't like spicy food until we started having Korean together. I hadn't tried Korean food at all until my friends first brought me.
At the end of the night, we'd wound back up near the restaurant. We got ice cream, and sat on the curb since the benches were near bushes with mosquitoes. I was just reaching the point where you have to start eating the cone to keep going, when the sign in the restaurant window caught my eye. It was an unremarkable sign on its own: red and blue neon proclaiming "Korean BBQ" to outdoor diners who surely already knew. People sitting outside the restaurant at tables under an awning. Perfect summer evening air. Ice cream cone in my hand. For a moment, I felt my youth, finally. I felt peaceful. I felt loved. And I deserved it, I had earned it, because I had chosen to come out to dinner.
Today my partner told me they worry about me. I told them that made me feel like I'd done something wrong. They said they had meant it as if to say, "I want to see you get better." It's interesting, to me. I had never considered that "I'm worried about you" is just another way of saying "I love you."
