Hold hard and let go and go on

It is 64 degrees in Athens, Ohio.

College Green. Athens, Ohio.

It is 64 degrees in Athens, Ohio. I watch an old man walk out of St Paul’s church alone at 3pm. He takes a picture of the trees and continues on his way. I meet a beautiful girl named Georgia in College Green and her every word bleeds sincerity. The girl who brewed my tea this morning is named Jane. When I was a child, I would usually choose the name Jane when I was playing whatever pretend game my cousin and I made up that day. Now, I am often told that I look like Jane from Breaking Bad, but I’m pretty sure it’s just because I have black hair and bangs and my skin is practically translucent. I appreciate it anyway—she’s very pretty, and there are lots of great songs about girls named Jane. I’ve always been jealous of girls who were named after songs. A boy I dated very briefly during the summer between my junior and senior years of high school used to refer to me exclusively as Nini, never Nina, and that sort of felt like having a song written about me. He once told me that I was “a walking fever pitch”—he was always saying weird shit like that. I found it terribly romantic when I was seventeen.

I wear my favorite dress (without a coat!!!) to my anthropology lecture, where my endlessly interesting professor defines anthropology in the context of cultural critique as “making the familiar strange,” which is, in many ways, just the process of living a worthwhile life. The class is fascinating and challenging. Education is a privilege that I am becoming more and more obsessed with as I begin to streamline my classes into subjects that I’m particularly interested in. By the end of my four years here, I hope to be one of those disgustingly educated women, a force to be reckoned with. My dad once told me that if I am the smartest person in the room, then I am in the wrong room, and I think about this almost every day.

It is 64 degrees in Athens and the sun shines warm at 4pm. People are walking their dogs and walking their friends home, and everything is so sweet I could cry. It is not hard to wax poetic today, maybe because of the weather or because of the lovely party my friends and I attended this weekend or because I am sure that there is tenderness on the horizon. I am shimmering with some sort of quiet contentment—I have been doing my best to harmonize with the ache in my chest as it dulls, and I am getting much better at it. There are still pen stains on my sheets from falling asleep while writing about a man who I can only stomach referring to as an old friend, but I am sure that they will fade someday, and if they don’t, then I will at least have a souvenir of sorts. If I am lucky enough to grow old, I will certainly be happy to have at least a small piece of proof that I was once young and naive, that I loved without conditions in spite of my better judgement, and that I was brave enough to hold hard, and to let go, and to go on. There is no sense in wishing that I wouldn't have held so hard. Or in wishing that I would've held harder. There is no sense in resenting that my logic is often scrambled by an abundance of optimism. There is no sense in a lot of things, but there is always a lesson to be learned. 

It is 64 degrees in Athens. Appalachia is a dream—I have dinner with Marie, drink a beer, visit Cullen and his new cat. There is nothing to say that hasn’t already been said, but I am not so concerned with this at the moment. Today, I yearn for nothing—just the strength to forgive, the freedom to remain soft, and more days like this. And to see my mom soon.

Thank you for reading You Get What You Need ♡ And thank you so much for 100 subscribers!!! I’m so moved and so grateful and so excited to share more with you.

I hope that this year has been kind to you so far. Keep your heart open.