I always start cleaning in the kitchen. I think it’s the place I like the most in my home. In here, I’ve created memories of burnt food, bad ingredients, failed recipes, and cooking with those that I love. In here, I scrub, I use too much soap. I wipe and wipe and wipe until I feel I have cleaned out everything that was not good.

My living room is next. In here, I’ve sat and laughed, cried, hugged, loved. I’ve used my too small coffee table for dinners that were too big, and spent taco nights hunched over it, hoping they would last forever.

In my bathroom, I’ve done hair routines, plucked hairs, showered after beaches and lakes.

It’s hard standing in rooms where memories are all you have. Memories of which there most likely will never be anymore.

But I carry on, because these places are also mine, the memories are mine, and I clean every room in here just so I can always cherish them both.

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There is a woman at my job who brings me a piece of fruit every single day. Her and I have become great friends, despite our age gap, and we speak of our lives constantly. If I could take all of her problems, shove them in a box, and push them all far away from her, I would. I feel for her as if her life was my own. And she feels for me. She hears me when I tell her that things that I thought were one way, really weren’t; things that I didn’t want to happen, did; things that I wanted to happen, I will never get; that kindness lacks in numbers reaching infinity; things I did not see coming; things I did see coming; that I’m stupid, and embarrassed, and naive. 

I hugged her when she cried as her familial problems in her country became grave, and she hugged me when I explained problems that seemed completely irrelevant in comparison to hers, and the rest of the worlds’.

She brings me two pieces of fruit every day now. The ladies that eat lunch at 3 PM as well come to get me whenever I don’t show up on time. My coworker brings me coffee.

So, I no longer think kindness lacks in huge numbers, actually.

Kindness depends on the company you choose to keep. 

Sometimes, when we complain about the good and the easy things that come into our lives, the Universe has a way of showing us just how back-handed we can be. It will remove the good and the easy, and give you heartache, burdens, uneasiness to plague you instead. Almost like it’s saying, “Since you complain about the good and the easy, then what will you complain about now that you have quite the opposite?”

Almost making you miss what was good, and what was easy. 

People are not fixer upper’s. Nobody is meant to be fixed by anyone other than themselves. And if someone does not want to change for themselves, they will not change for you. 

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Types of Love

And what I think of them

Arguably, 

a Considerate Love is the best kind. It does not need you around to think of you. You do not need to speak to be thought of. It sees you, always. To me, this is what being in love is truly like. If you are lucky enough to find someone who loves through consideration, think of them back. Those who do the considering, are often rarely considered themselves. An “I love you”, from someone who considers you, is deeply meant.

A Reactive Love can 180° sway even those that think it won’t. It will rollercoaster you everywhere; no buckles, no safeguards, no sense of direction at all. It will never give you the warning to brace yourself. It may have been exciting when it first took off, with all of its drops, twists, loops.

A never ending rollercoaster with no end in sight is deadly.

A reactive love doesn’t last, because sooner or later, you have to get off the ride. An “I love you”, from a reactive lover, is only meant in the moment it is said, and only when you are around. In reality, it will never be shown when you are no longer in their direct line of vision. 

An Anxious Love is full of fear. It thinks itself to death, so much so, that it tends to manifest exactly what it is avoiding. An anxious love does not know how to let go, and let things happen the way they will. No matter how self-preservative you are, anxious lover, you cannot control everything. And if someone shows you exactly who they are the first time around, do yourself a favor and believe them. An “I love you”, from an anxiety ridden lover, is silently pleading for the end of disappointments, but above all else, it is always silently begging to be considered.

An Avoidant Love will find a way to leave, and even if they do not do it first, their exits are always grand. Cue the trumpets and trombones, cue the curtains, sit. It does not attach well. There is no key for that lock. It is handcrafted to be absent-minded, and sometimes selfish. Avoidant lovers often tend to only consider themselves. An “I love you” from an avoidant lover, does not hold much weight. It will snap at the scent of any problem of any size, and take you right down with it.

Any kind of love is an experience. Learning to say thank you for both good and bad experiences is difficult. A bad experience is practically thankless, but it was an experience nonetheless. 

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Scorpios

and the fire they give

I never liked to deal with anything right away. It was always too much to process things right when they occurred. In the past, I would take whatever happened, and lock it away at the very back of my mind. Little did I know, the issues in your life and the emotions you avoid, all have hands. Their opposable thumbs and will to escape are going to pick any lock you try to enclose them with. I would live my life feigning like whatever happened was nothing, fully knowing that it was everything. I carried on just to test how much I could endure, until finally, the problems I shoved to the back of my mind picked their lock. They raced each other to the front of my skull, and the ones that won would transform into liquid and fall out of my eye sockets at speeds unknown to man. The ones that came second place would become words of hatred and escape at the loudest volume from my mouth. The ones that came in last would tap and tap and tap at my phone to see just how much I could discover, until 2+2 made sense, until 2+2 hurt more than I could imagine. In total, they would all light me up in flames.

Whenever I read anything about my zodiac sign, I learn that Scorpios can never get over anything, ever. We are calculating and meticulous, constantly planning behind the scenes. Always watching our backs. Always preparing for the worst. Always trying to know more than another, and always trying to remain one step ahead. No surprises accepted. Luckily, for all astrology lovers reading this, I can confirm that this is all very, very true.

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Life’s Invisible String

A part of my job is dealing with addresses. The automatic address set in our system is 1 block away from the University where I first attended college. I transferred after one semester. Almost every day, I find myself wondering, “What if I had never left? What if I had stayed? Who would my friends have been? Who would have I become?”. Six years later, I am reminded constantly of my what-would-have-been life. 

You will never run into someone who lived down the street from you for 4 years, but you will eventually meet them later in life, in your 20’s, when you no longer live nearly as close.

Something I begged the universe not to happen, completely happened anyway. 

Because she’s just funny that way.

I think the Universe and I are frenemies. I beg her to give me something that I desperately feel like I need, and she gives me literally anything but. And still, we talk every day, as if nothing happened. We live happily in our perfect little toxic life of desperation and willful ignorance. 

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Summer Wishlist:

1. A new brain
2. Tan at least two to three foundation shades darker 
3. Re-connect with nature for the 20th time this year
4. Drag my friends to reconnect with nature so we can all be sad together
5. Road-trip
6. The development of my pre-frontal cortex 
7. Shaming all of my past decisions after it develops 
8. Emotional support bar hopping
9. Finding more daily necklaces
10. Buying some cute capris
11. Thrifting

Everyone deserves to be loved without feeling like they have to beg for it. I’ve learned that though the love we give may not be reciprocated in the moment, the Universe will give it back to you ten-fold. The love you give is not in vain, and it does not disappear. It will always come back to you, maybe not immediately, but it will, because this life is a mirror. What you choose to give it, is exactly what will come right back to you.

With love,

Gabriela