#31 | connection
Today my friend helped me move some fragile items into my new apartment. I spent the morning packing and preparing for his arrival. I'm nearly done with packing, surprisingly. we got a late lunch by my new apartment at a restaurant I had always wanted to go to more. and then we got tea and coffee at a cozy cafe I had always wanted to try! A beautiful sunny winter day. I spontaneously suggested we watch Sentimental Value, the new film by Joachim Trier.
The last Trier film I saw left me so raw. I remember feeling like it had made me conscious of emotions that had been brewing in my heart for a while: being lost and not sure of what you want to do in life. I remember sitting in my car with my ex afterwards and sobbing behind the driver's wheel about how I didn't want to have children just to give myself meaning, but I could tell that's why my mom had me—because she was stuck. I had never had that experience with a movie before.
This movie came at a time in my life where I was already thinking so much about intergenerational trauma and the ways that we process feeling and search for intimacy. I've spent a lot of time lately digging into my childhood and why I am the anxious person I am, why I take everything as abandonment and rejection, why I was so drawn to my ex, why I miss her so much, why it hurts so much. A couple days before her dad died, I had been crying in front of her about work. I was surprised why I was crying, and I think she was too. She didn't know what to say. Since when did I care so much about work where I could cry in frustration? Had I been holding my feelings in all summer, because I didn't feel comfortable needing her when I thought she didn't need me? Could I feel our relationship collapsing but wasn't able to say it out loud?
But really, the whole time, she did need me. She just couldn't say it, so I didn't either. I think we both have this sadness in each other, a perspective on life that is sometimes apathetic but other times deeply desperate for human presence. For so long our relationship was built on our immediate, inherent connection being able to wordlessly fulfill that connection for each other, but the longer you go through life together, you must eventually learn to ask for it effectively. that's something I'm trying to learn right now; I hope she is too.