crossing paths

Dedicated to everyone who wonders if I’m writing about them. I am.

Anonymous

i’m sitting at the tampa airport right now, surrounded by people munching on lukewarm ham and cheese croissants and sitting slumped in the uncomfortable airport chairs with those goofy neck pillows poised on the back of their necks. my flight was one of the 1200 cancelled this morning, and i have another eight hours until i’ll be on my way back to Indy.

and i ended up here, with you, like i always do when i’ve got some things on my mind.

i just finished Emily Henry’s People We Meet on Vacation. by no means was it a smashing hit in my humble opinion, but the general theme seemed to register with me to some degree. i curled up in one of those airport chairs for 2+ hours, crossing and uncrossing my legs as numbness pinged, until i closed the back cover. this has been some of the first moments alone that i’ve had in the past 4 days, and while i don’t necessarily feel lonely, it does feel strange to be traveling alone. it wasn’t until i read this quote that something stuck:

“For the first time in my life, the airport strikes me as the loneliest place in the world. All those people, parting ways, going off in their own direction, crossing paths with hundreds of people but never connecting.” (318)

lately i’ve found myself spiraling about something that i don’t know how to sum up in one shiny phrase. we’ll call it “crossing paths” for both your sake and mine.

crossing paths in the sense of how my life intersects with so many others and how my life exists in relation to others. wow! groundbreaking! i know!

look, i know that everyone and their mom has had the conscious realization of the humanity of every individual around them. like when you’re driving down the interstate and someone speeds by you in the left lane and you start musing to yourself whether they’re rushing their laboring wife to the hospital to deliver a first-born or whether they’re late for work for the umpteenth time because they spilled coffee on their uniform and their boss already threatened to fire them if it happened again. as an avid people watcher, this is one of my favorite pastimes and makes my positionality in the world more relaxing. i find comfort in knowing that when you strip our experiences down to the bare bones, i probably have a lot more in common than you’d think with the haggard businessman sitting across from the charging station from me while he makes strained calls to clients.

for a while now, i’ve been consumed by this idea of how we’re all a mosaic of people. total strangers, family members, lovers, best friends, and all those that exist in the in-between spaces and those that overlap. i’ve been asking myself how other people exist in my mosaic without being able to come up with enough answers to actually make any semblance of writing that’s more than a few lines. the answer i’ve come up with is that there’s a multitude of answers that i don’t think i could ever identify, even if i lived to be 100 years old (God Bless Betty White). i couldn’t tell you all the ways that my parents have imprinted upon me or how an off the wall interaction with a barista subconsciously changed my perspective on a topic.

but i can tell you that i still hear my ex-best friend’s voice crooning along to Halsey’s “Bad At Love” when it comes on the radio as i drive home from college. the corners of my mouth tug upwards just a bit when i go to turn the volume up and it stops at 17 and i think of how someone had to have it on an even number. my hand catches on the dial and i turn it up to 18 out of habit.

since i’ve been on winter break, it seems that every time i turn around i find myself looking into the eyes of someone i used to know on some level. which isn’t hard at all when you live in a small community. but i think it’s the varying levels of closeness that has stood out to me. people that i haven’t seen (or thought of, for that matter) for years and they’re out with their spouses. i’ve bumped into family friends, family members of friends, old teachers, old teammates, old friends. you name ’em, i’ve seen ’em. some have averted their eyes from me, some have engaged in surface level conversation with me, mentioning a mutual friend that i didn’t even know we had, or even wrapping me in a hug that says things that go unsaid. varying degrees of interactions, i guess. every single one of those people has this preserved version of me in their head that doesn’t exist anymore because i’m not that person. crazy to think that my fifth grade teacher probably remembers me as the girl that would obnoxiously flirt with her boyfriend from clear across the room DURING class. i’ve tried to tell you, i’m a clown. i also have preserved versions of others that don’t exist anymore, and i’m learning that it’s not fair to hold that version in my head. people aren’t stagnant.

as someone who tends to get attached to people, or maybe the idea of people i should say, i’ve been trying to hardwire my mind to default to detachment. not cold and not avoidant, just detached. though i’m still working on it, i’ve discovered it’s a lot easier to appreciate people and situations for what they are when you aren’t hyper-fixated on the outcome. don’t get me wrong, i think i’ll always romanticize the hell out of everyone. i like to see the best in people, so shoot me! i actually think that detachment has allowed me to soften up a little bit. i feel like i’ve been withholding a lot of love for a long time. not necessarily romantic love, but that’s what we always think of when we say “love.” casual love, platonic love, “i missed you more than i thought” love. call it warmth, admiration, i don’t know. i fall in love when someone humors me about my incessant need to ask my “hey, what do you think of…” questions. and when they’re almost painfully blunt without stopping to think about anything. i don’t feel silly when these thoughts wrack through my mind anymore. i do need help on the rumination part, though. send tips to my DMs. maybe i’m just a hopeless, sentimental romantic, but i think recklessly loving is such an underrated part of being a human.

detaching myself from people lets me see life as a revolving door with new people always flooding in (and hopefully not getting any limbs caught) while the people that have served their purpose to simultaneously exit onto the street, ready to enter a revolving door into someone else’s life.

i want so badly to clamp onto everyone that i cross paths with, old or new, and hold onto them for the rest of my days. i catch myself falling in love so easily, but not necessarily in a romantic way. i actually think that’s easier said than done. a few months ago, i had the startlingly obvious realization that everyone in my life is temporary. i may be lucky enough to have decades with a handful of loved ones, but we don’t have forever. i don’t know how long the seemingly permanent people around me will be with me, but i stopped acting like forever is a possibility. i tell people i love them and what i admire about them and appreciate the time i have because once again, we don’t have forever. nothing gold can stay!

i’ve had a lot of friendships end in my 21 years, on good and bad terms, but i don’t love any of them any less than i did when we were playing tag on the school playground or getting ready for football games. in fact, i wished i loved them more then and knew what i know now. instead of focusing on all my ex-besties and what went wrong there, i’m choosing to pour my love into my friends. platonic friendships are often seen as inferior to romantic relationships, and while the two aren’t replacements for the other, platonic love is just as powerful, if not more so, than romantic love.

i see people for what they are, who they are, because i don’t have time to wait on them to be someone else. it shouldn’t be that way.

like i said in my last post about how i had that come-to-Jesus moment in Chicago, this was sort’ve a parallel moment about my interpersonal relationships. i feel so lucky and grateful to have my life intersect with everyone i’ve ever crossed paths with. maybe at peace is a better phrase? in a way, i’ve relinquished control and have allowed people to ebb and flow out of my life, or in it. i’ve stopped trying to force things, and stopped trying to hold on so tightly. i found this quote on TikTok (of all places) that resonated with what i’m trying to convey, “I loved you during the times I got to experience you.”

to see people for exactly for what they are, at their face value is so crucial. i’ve had a bad habit of drinking the kool-aid of seeing the potential in someone which really isn’t fair because you bypass everything that that person is in that moment. i’ve missed the entirety of someone and misunderstood them because rose colored glasses were perched on my nose.

i’m especially guilty of this in romantic settings. i think it can be really hard to distinguish between liking someone as a person and liking them as a partner. i’ve gone on dates with people that i think i could be friends with as they are. if i squint, i could easily envision some sort of relationship with the version of them i’ve convinced myself they’ll be if they like me enough. of course, i think it’s important to have a list of non-negotiables, but remember you can’t nitpick every aspect of someone that doesn’t meet your criteria. ya feel me?

of course, that’s not fair to me because i’d be crossing boundaries i’ve worked hard to set for myself and not fair to them because that’s not even who they are. yet. and they may never be who you think they could be. you just can’t date someone’s potential because then you’re dating a phantom, someone who doesn’t exist. i think that you can meet people where they are without sacrificing yourself in the process.

detaching myself from looking too far ahead or expecting anything more than an off-chance run-in that went surprisingly better than i’d ever expected lets me just be happy that i had the privilege to catch up with an old friend for an hour or two. maybe we’ll cross paths again in another few years and this weird loop of interactions will continue. but if not, that’s okay too. life is lived in between crossed paths with old friends. bittersweet reunions.

this concept of crossing paths baffles me because of how arbitrary it all seems, but i don’t think it is. the butterfly effect is something i like to mull over in that weird space between my head hitting the pillow and the Sandman’s inevitable visit. “Tonight i find myself thinking about how things could have been different without wishing that they were” (my journal). how differently things could have gone and still can (and will) go, depending on what you say vs. don’t say, etc. the series “Normal People” exacerbates this. whether you’re a fan or not, it outlined the flaws of interpersonal communication and how that affects the outcome of a situation. Connell and Marianne are the “crossing paths” blueprint.

and so, it’s almost impossible to ponder my perception of other people without also considering how i exist, even if and probably fleetingly, in their mind. i wonder if people think of me and feel the same ache in the space between heartbeats that i do. i wonder if they think about me when they see patchwork jeans or when they watch “Love, Rosie” and remember how i really thought i found a hidden gem, not knowing it was a blockbuster a few years prior. but i’ll never know and that’s okay, too.

i’ll leave you with these quotes

I fall in love just a little or a little bit everyday with someone new.

Hozier, “Someone New”

Suddenly we’re not kids anymore, and it feels like it happened overnight, so fast I didn’t have time to notice, to let go of everything that used to matter so much, to see that the old wounds that once felt like gut-level lacerations have faded to small white scars, mixed in among the stretch marks and sunspots and little divots where time has grazed against my body.

I’ve put so much time and distance between myself and that lonely girl, and what does it matter? Here is a piece of my past, right in front of me, miles away from home. You can’t outrun yourself. Not your history, not your fears, not the parts of yourself you’re worried are wrong.

Henry, 336

Obviously people grow up, a voice says in my head. You think all those people were just frozen in time, just because they stayed in Linville?

Henry, 337

Sometimes I remind myself that I almost skipped the party, that I almost went to a different college, that the whim of a minute could have changed everything and everyone. Our lives, so settled, so specific, are built on happenstance.

Anne Quindlen

losing people is so interesting because no i don’t want to speak to you ever again. yes i think about you on your birthday.

tumblr, frenchtoastlesbian

touching people’s lives in a positive way is as close as I can get to an idea of religion

Keith Haring

you meet people, you love them, and then you lose them and you never see them again. and it’s inevitable and it happens to everyone and there’s nothing you can do about it

tumblr, adampvrrish

i’m a sentimental soul, and my journal reflects that.

And even if our paths crossed temporarily tonight and nothing is supposed to come of it and maybe I’ll never even see him again, I hope that we bump into each other in another few years and we can spend time together. Maybe we’d even be friends again in that one parallel universe where everything goes how I want…Or maybe I just romanticize everything and idealize everyone. Or I’m delusional.

January 3, my journal “21”

that’s all she wrote! cheers!

& i love you ❤

“Down to the bones.”

Mackenzie