i walk down into the bar i still call “my favorite in town”

and there he is

hands around my waist

breath on my neck 

kiss me and dont ever tell 

there he is

here for someone else

as i make a scene, slumped up against

the chalk-soaked brick 

and the band continues to play all the same 

we catapult down into the basement of another must-visit

filled with the neon light of a cursive sign

cheap gin and tonics to match 

and there she is 

with wandering hands under shirts

and the oscar-winning performance 

of two women, pressed close 

against the wood pillar 

now steeped in stale desire 

and the well drinks pour all the same 

we stumble past the still-unclean fraternity 

i can taste the light beer that he and i used to drink 

chasing the whiskey that kept our affection afloat 

tongues down throats, 

marlboro reds, lucky one flipped

until the very end

and the ice melted all the same 

dark bar, dark porch, dark bedroom

where they were fucked and forgotten 

until muscle memory brought them back swinging

The end of the year has once again rolled around, and of course it is my time to both reflect on the past year’s growth and plan the journey of my next year on this earth. 

I found that describing my frreshman year in songs was an easy and artful way to access my own growth, so here is that for this summer & semester (this crazy happy whirlwind summer & semester.)  

Light On by Maggie Rogers: 

This song is about the art of being okay with things ending and moving the way you need to move for you and being happy with it. “I’m still dancing at the end of the day” is a perfect description of how I’ve been and how I’ve learned to be. This song is the strength I’ve found in my own ability to dance through endings. 

Fallingwater by Maggie Rogers:

This song understands the uncertainty of life as it stands. This song understands that uncertainty can be absolutely overwhelming sometimes, and that it is okay to be overwhelmed. This song told me that it was okay to break when it felt like life was pulling me down a creek I didn’t recognize. This song let me be not okay for a moment, and let me embrace the experience of being falling water. 

Benadryl by Sofi Tukker: 

This song helped me realize what a toxic relationship was doing to me. This song helped me realize that my lack of focus, my anxiety, and my lack of presence had a root. This song is my realization that loving someone at a point in time doesn’t mean they are right for you. This song was the blur of welcome week and the realization that there was one part of my life I no longer needed. I will never again fall for the lull of a benadryl love. 

Regular Touch by Vera Blue: 

My declaration of independence. My car dances with Yeager and our absolute and complete euphoria of being ourselves.

Agnes by Glass Animals:

“You’re gone but you’re on my mind.” This song is the pain of losing Teddy and the way that missing him has changed my perspective on life. This song is the breaths I could not breath as I stumbled toward Jesse’s house to fall into his arms crying. This song is the overwhelming realization that someone can truly be gone forever. 

Feel Something by Liz Brasher: 

This song is allowing myself to feel the way I need to feel. This song is the introspection of my drives to and from LA at the beginning of the summer. This song is growth and the momentary stifling of that growth. 

Message in a Bottle by the Police (covered by Allen Stone): 

Standing in a crowd sharing my tears over my favorite artist in the whole world with Jesse. Knowing that he cares and that I care and that we love each other in a way so different than I’ve ever loved anyone before. A passive love and care: giving him his gift that he didn’t want after the concert and watching him smile. His calm thank yous as he pulls me closer to him in bed. A friendship type love, a love that doesn’t need intimacy but has it sometimes. A love without restriction or anxiety or ultimatums. A love with transparency. He taught me how to care for someone in a healthy way this year. All of this is quite funny considering neither of us ever even considered wanting to date or be together in any official way. He just is, and I just am, and every so often we just are. I would never have had it any other way. I will miss the hell out of him next year - he truly has been such a huge part of who I am at Michigan & helping me become a more independent person. I will never love someone who doesn’t help me become more independent ever again because of what he taught me. 

Breathin by Ariana Grande:

This song was my walking through campus trying to be okay song. This song made me okay. This was my strength when I couldn’t breathe for any number of reasons. 

1999 by Charli XCX and Troye Sivan:

My best friendship with Yeager. My love. My everything. This song reminds me of how blessed I am to have him. 

Shotgun by George Ezra:

The anti-social social club. My new best gal friends found in Sam and Reece. I’ve never had such fast friends or found such supportive people. It felt good to be attached at the hip to them, whether it be studying in Law or hammered at date parties. I can’t wait for our junior year together.

Bloom by Troye Sivan: 

Walking in confidence. Love & kitchen songs with Brendan.

Kill the Lights by Alex Newell: 

Dancing in the dark with whoever I want. Kisses to be forgotten and moving my body however which way I want, both by myself and with anyone I want. “Come spin me around, let’s get lost in the sound.”

Bad Decisions by Ariana Grande: 

How my year ended. Baaaad decisions - but a quote I read made me feel so good about this. “How lucky we are to have the liberty to make mistakes.” I feel lucky to be able to make the bad decisions I make without consequence, though they catch up to me every so often. 

And now for the resolutions. I have always been a proponent of New Year’s resolutions, but this year I have learned so much about myself that I feel like these propositions are so much more informed and important. These ones are different than before. They’re more personal and less “I’m gonna work out more” (even though that is certainly a resolution I need to make.) 

1. I will take time each week to appreciate my own strength. I will be self-reflexive in the same way that I have been for the past few months. I will let myself be not okay if I am not okay. I will take time to write in my little brown book - both happiness and pain. I will let myself pause, and I will not push my mental health to the side. I am doing so well, and this is how it will stay that way. 

2. I will be more guarded. I have always been an open book about who I am and have been quick to allow people to get to know the deep dark depths of me. I have decided that not everyone deserves access to those depths, and that I should place more value in the self. I have learned this in a big way this semester: not everyone deserves a text back. Not all questions must be answered. Not all people are worth my time. If people are toxic or not worth my time, I will proceed with the knowledge that I have no obligation to them.

3. I will practice more empathy. I will do my very best to not only be empathetic when people are telling me their problems but in every moment of my life. I will continue to work on awareness of how my complaints and problems can affect others. I will ask people if they have the emotional capacity to handle me if I need help, and I will be attentive. 

4. I will not sleep with anyone who doesn’t give a shit about me. A drunken night out is a fun time, and sex is a fun time, but I have come to the conclusion that sex barely remembered and never talked about again isn’t worth it. I don’t regret any of the sex I’ve had, but there is only one person with whom the sex actually meant something (Jesse.) He is the only person who actually cared about me. I need to finally acknowledge that that means something to me. 

5. I will dance on my own when I want to. I will not hold onto something because I feel like I have to. I will experience life for myself and make decisions based on nobody other than me. 

6. I will jump in. 

That’s all for now. I’m sure I will accumulate more as time goes on.

Love, 

Julia 

I love: 

-your smile when you make fun of me 

-the way your eyes crinkle when you smile 

-your playlists full of your life’s movie soundtrack songs

-how we always have the same favorite song, no matter what artist

-your jokes that only you laugh at

-the way you kiss me when i’m making fun of you and we’re drunk

-the way you wrap your arms around my waist when we’re wine drunk and there’s music on

-dancing slow in your room to your records turning 

-feeling you pull my waist toward you when we’re both half awake in the morning 

-meeting you at coffee shops and hardly being able to focus with you around 

-crying into you when i need support, and knowing i will be recieved with more empathy than anyone else in the world

I don’t love: 

-impermanence

-that I can’t and shouldn’t fall

-that I’m falling, anyway

https://open.spotify.com/track/7E7N0YaNyQEMiRY2lt6eVE?si=CYDQ3pMzTCaOOP5nEPs1kg

https://open.spotify.com/track/2zFdsAIk9r2Mi7Lmm1w3sM?si=1LFZSTDDReKWBIDFw-hESQ

Ah yes, the time has come again for my every-so-often mental breakdown and reconstruction. However, this time it has been different. I spent yesterday crying, but I spent it crying into the arms of people that I love. I have been struggling with anxiety, but I know what is happening and how to handle it. On average, my anxiety has not been caused by external factors - I understand that this is all brain chemistry. 

Yet still, I had reason to cry yesterday. My anxiety wasn’t entirely unwarranted. The aftereffects of an excess of alcohol running through my system and an unwanted (though probably consensual, at the time) sexual encounter set my panic attacks going, and they went. 

Despite how hard yesterday was, this post is not about that. This post is about resilience. This post is about how much I am succeeding and thriving here at Michigan despite all of the things that could have prevented that. It is October, and yesterday is the first moment that I have felt even the slightest bit of homesickness. I have been too busy to slow down and think about what I could possibly be sad about because I have too many exciting things going on in my life to count. 

So, here’s a list of the things in my life that make me incredibly happy every moment of every day: my best friends (shipman, phiDE, pi phi - I feel like I have gotten so close with everyone this year and I truly have a home), my adorable room with lovely decorations, my success in classes (I GOT AN A ON ORGO EXAM 1), my work in the lab (doing surgery and my own experiment!), my hospital volunteering (same as always, and I always leave smiling), my complete and total independence (I am now beholden to nobody but myself, and I do what makes me happy), my partying (how do I balance what I balance and still get obliterated every weekend? who knows! but I do, somehow, and I’m so proud of myself for going out this year and not letting anyone hold me back from doing that), my second home (the boys’ house, and I guess Jesse’s room.. that place is my safe space to be me in my fullest way and I will never be able to thank them enough for that), Patrick freaking McLinden (the most supportive big in the whole world), Yeager (for supporting me in every second of every day and being the best friend I’ve ever had), Jesse (for showing me that I am allowed to be happy doing what I want and having my own autonomy while also caring for someone else. for letting me cry into him yesterday and always knowing what to say to make me feel better. this semester and always, and also for good sex), and a million other people who make my home here in ann arbor my home, roo’s roast coffee, literati coffee, espresso royale coffee, and all my other tiny homes here, the law library, the hatcher ref room, the beautiful things I get to see every time I walk around campus, the arboretum, evan parness (for taking me to the arboretum and making me get outside), the whole world around me and so many countless things I am forgetting to mention. I am truly so incredibly happy here and I love every second of life despite the hard times. I have found my home and I am so proud of myself for having the resilience last year and this year to be willing to search for that home. 

Despite all that, there is the hard stuff. So here’s what’s been bugging me lately: -missing Teddy, wishing he was alive and knowing that he is who I would facetime in the midst of my panic attacks and knowing that I can’t do that anymore because he is gone, wishing that I spent more time with him before his time was cut short 

-worries that all of this happiness is short term and will go away after this semester even though I am so excited to go to Chile

-some days I think I’m falling in love with Jesse in the same way that I started to before, and I don’t want to do that. He is so sweet to me but we both know that we don’t want that kind of investment right now, but some nights it just gets to me that maybe he matters as more than just my best friend and the person I get to be more comfortable around than anyone else

-some days I worry I’ll burn out. that’s certainly what happened this weekend - I went too far and went too hard and I hit a brick wall. I am excited for the calm of fall break and the pause from all things loud and obnoxious and busy, but I’m worried I won’t have enough time to rest.

-i hate myself for this but every so often in my most insecure moments I wonder what ryan is doing. i don’t want him back in my life, and my life is undeniably better without him. i feel free in a totally different way now that he is completely cut off. i don’t have any of the anxiety i used to have. i don’t miss him. i don’t think of him very much anymore in the way that i always used to. i have other people i get excited to share music with now. i have realized that the things i thought were specific to him are not. he is not my everything, he is not my world, and he never should’ve been. this is all even external to the fact that he cheated and lied and made me feel insane for two years. this has to do with the feeling of being contained and always worrying about what someone else thinks. i don’t have to care about that anymore. i don’t have to be shamed and manipulated anymore. however, with all of that happiness comes the sadness of losing someone who i loved, and probably will never stop loving in a certain way. i will never forget how he made me feel, despite how fake it feels now. so sometimes i wonder if he misses me too, or if he thinks of me. i don’t want to see him or speak to him, but sometimes i wonder and it cuts into me like a knife. it feels like two years of my life were wasted, and that’s a terrible feeling. but i don’t need him anymore, and that chapter of my life is complete. i wish him happiness, and i hope that he matures so the next girl he is with doesn’t have to do what i did. 

No matter what: I am here, and I am resilient. 

Songs:

https://open.spotify.com/user/julia_hunter/playlist/5IV39O9bnFL7vdVtKre8Gt?si=Ph7jAmRKQY2sphvu9XIkcg

Until my next cry session, 

Julia