relationships are wild

I don't even know what this post is, except I think bae and I are moving so fast, not just in terms of how we're acting, like hanging out all the time, but also in terms of feelings.

It's so strange and unlike what I thought it would be. I don't know what I expected really, but Mia hit it spot on when she told me that when you date someone, if you aren't doing anything else, you just tend to hang out with them. I thought it would just be similar to what we were like when we were FWB but it's way more.

Like, the other day bae invited a mutual over friend over for dinner at his. He just casually mentioned to me 'so see you tonight like 7' or something, which was the only hint I got that I was invited, cos he just assumed obviously as we are dating I get an automatic invite which like, I get, but also it's new for me. So he had to be like yes lucy that is how dating works. It's all new and I like it all.

Sometimes I don't go home for two or three days, at least not for more than a change of clothes. I sleep at his about two thirds of the time now. That's a lot. I like it though.

It's crazy how much I want to spend time together. He left me in bed this morning cos he's going to Canberra overnight for debating and I miss him and it's only been like 12 hours. It's like being in the Twilight Zone. Me having feelings??? Okay, that part is average, but for a boy?  Romantically? This is strange. And it's intense, I have absolutely zero chill. I look at him and think 'God I love you' all the goddamn time. Not that I say that yet, cos it's only been 2 months or whatever (9 1/2 if you count FWB time which I half do) but I think it. I'm getting so close to blurting it out. I don't know why I do exactly cos it's not like he's changed, but I just like him a fuckton and I think that's basically love? I know it's half puppy love, like, honeymoon love, not deep deep, I want to be with you forever love, but I want to touch him all the time, I always want to kiss him, for us to be skin to skin, he makes me laugh, I admire him so much and I just like arguing with him and we all know that's when I know it's real.

We don't really agree on much, all the superficial stuff we disagree, like music, movies, pop culture, fashion. He's a hipster and I'm a basic bitch basically, so we are very often dragging each other for our deeply held opinions but I think it's mostly, if not totally, in good fun. I sometimes worry that I'm not alternative enough for him, because I dress preppy and am not into going to gigs and don't want to get an undercut but we agree on the big stuff, which I have been reassured by a friend is what is what's important.

I think I realized how much I liked him when Mia pointed out to me that he's actually sort of one of a kind. Mia and I have argued for years about my high standards when it comes to romantic interests politics and values. I've made exceptions and there are people who are less intense about things that I've had feelings for but no one that I've ever dated. Bae is the only person I know who is more progressive than I am, in fact he almost constantly has me beat and which that sometimes annoys me, I also know that I never want it any different.

I don't think I'll be able to lower my standards now. I like feeling safe and sure about him, with sex but also just with my feelings. He has never not come through when I've talked him about personal things, and I've never got anxious for a second that I may not be safe with him or that he might hurt me. I mean, that's a low standard to hold guys to but that's society I guess.

I guess I'm just happy and I feel like it's moving fast, to the extent that I'm terrified of it ending suddenly, or going wrong. I like him. I like what we have. I want it to keep going. I want to go deeper. I remember when I said at the start of this, when I was convincing him we should date, 'if it isn't working out, we can just end it after a few months, no hard feelings' but I was so naive dear God. I knew about feelings in the abstract but in reality this is real truly madly deeply type stuff, how do people survive this jfc.

This whole 'you either stay together forever or you break up' dichotomy is also terrifying. We're gonna break up one day, and all of this feeling and love will be dust, that's awful. How do people have relationships, are people insane? Relationships are a trip, this is wild.

I think I sometimes underestimate how sad I am sometimes. I think it's easy to forget and a lot of the time I just tell myself one thing over and over even if it's not the truth and just try to make it my truth. Like that I'm not devastated about Lizzy. It's still like a black hole. There is no amount of light or positive feelings or hope or friendship or love that I can throw into it and make it feel okay. I don't remember what it sounded like when she laughed, like full bellied laughed. I can remember her voice and certain phrases but not that. I don't remember her singing voice. I don't remember her smell. I don't know what she would say about me today. I don't know how she would feel about the relative frequency or infrequency of her name in conversations or my rote responses, I don't know how she would feel about me using the phrase best friend to describe her. I don't know if she'd say hell yes man, you should totally sleep with this guy or if she'd warn me right off. I don't know how I'm going to hear the word cancer ever again or see a movie about death or anyone being dead without thinking of her. I don't know how I'm going to go to the beach, especially to Mollymook and not feel devastated and like I'm missing a limb. I don't know how to do that but I also don't know how to ever make her less relevant to the point that I won't consider her when decision making or when I want to tell someone something because the idea of her being irrelevant is so repulsive but it's already happened in so many respects and I'm sick of hearing Liz would love this or Liz would be so proud of you or it's exactly what she would have wanted because no one wanted this, especially Lizzy. To die and be remembered and the tragic cancer girl who left behind grief and sadness and cliches would have been her last choice.

I think of her when I wash my hair, when I listen to music, when I watch movies, when I do anything new, when I get dressed or get new clothes, when I look in the mirror, when I eat frozen meals, when I think of Hilary Duff or the Temper Trap or the Killers or Fall Out Boy or Nikki Webster or when I walk on a beach or get coffee in a cafe at breakfast time. When I hear the name Camden, or see a train or shipping truck. When I do RPM or boxing, when I think about debating, let alone actually debate or go to Tournaments. I think of her when I wait to put on makeup after getting out of the shower so my pores have time to close. When I braid my hair. When I put change back into my wallet, when I feel the sun on my skin, I think of her. I think of her when I dream about the future, when I think about my wedding, or having kids or going to Africa or climbing a mountain or sky diving because I'm changing and growing and doing all of these things that she might have never imagined me doing and six months from now I'll be older than her and ever day past that I'll have been luckier than her and that's because I'll have had the chance to keep on living and growing. In 2013 I never would have considered debating and I never would have had anyone else imagine it for me either. Now it is a huge part of my identity. I expect to have many such things come into my life over time. Each making me a more diverse, interesting person but each also making me more and more indistinguishable from the girl I was. Am.

And more than ever I mourn the person that knew me, that knew us. Our relationship, our shared memories, our... Everything, I don't know the word to describe that. Our chemistry that made us go from being cousins by blood to cousins through friendship and love and companionship. Lizzy was my mate and I miss her more than words can describe.

One piece of advice about grief that I got and remember, is that grief is like a balloon. There is a fuckton of it, like air in a balloon, but it can only be expelled in small amounts, through the mouth piece bit, which is pinched together but to let little bits out. That's like grief, no matter how much grief there is, you can only get rid of it a little bit at a time. Which sucks, kind of. You can't ever really go off the rails or drown in sobbing. You feel bad and even awful but that's the extent of it for the most part. You take a few minutes or an hour and you cry and feel hollow but you can't overwhelm yourself, your body doesn't let you. It always feels far too rational for me, like not feeling enough or it's not affecting me in near as major a way as it should, which leads to guilt and over compensation and wondering what stuff I am doing as a performance and what stuff is because I really feel it and even possibly what stuff is a performance act for myself. Is making this list of things that remind me of Liz performative?

Fuck if I know.

I feel sad and out of place about it all the time. I feel like I'm so alone in family situations, where I never was before. It's like, Liz and I together was just baseline, but now I'm always below that, I'm always less. I feel like I'm waiting for her to show up so I can stop struggling to guess what she'd think or say or how she'd act in a situation. I imagine it the way I used to imagine romantic scenarios with boys I had a crush on, where I would plot it all out and guess how they would act. I went to a wedding this weekend and I imagined what snarky comments I would say to Liz, what she would have worn, how many times she would have rolled her eyes or gotten furious. I imagine the fun we'd have had, I imagine the small talk we'd have made, the dancing we'd have done, the way she would have laughed and cringed with me about our strange, embarrassing family.

I want her take on things all the time. I don't even know if I'd have wanted her take on them before she died, back when I took it all for granted, but I do now. No one else quite fills the role. She wasn't just a friend, or a cousin, she filled such a unique spot in my life that's irreplaceable. Sometimes I wish it wasn't.

God, I just want her back, in my arms. I want to smell her hair and feel her squeezing me back. I want her laughing and angry and rolling her eyes and scowling and lecturing me, and saying, 'hey man, what's up?' and I want her adjing me and I want her to double date with me and I want her telling me about her job and giving me book recs. I just want her out there somewhere. I want her to pull a TV show plot twist and come back, admitting she faked her death because the FBI had recruited her for a top secret mission to Mars.

Nothing else is enough. Nothing is enough. No matter what good stuff I have going on, and I have so much good stuff. I feel it every day that she isn't here and I'm not being rhetorical for effect, it's true. She's on my mind all the time and it's what I want but it's also so hard. So, so hard.