maybe life is teaching you to be a witness to yourself

i think one of the hardest things to admit is that the wanting never really leaves.

it changes shape. it becomes easier to carry. it stops waking you up in the middle of the night quite so often. but it never disappears. there is still a part of me that wants someone to notice the things i never say out loud. i want someone to look at my face and ask what happened before i have even decided whether i am going to tell them.

i want someone to remember the way i drink my tea without asking, to notice that i have become quieter this week, to hear the difference between “i’m tired” and “i’m not okay.” i want someone to know me so well that i no longer have to explain where it hurts.

i think a lot of us live there.

we carry this ordinary, human ache everywhere we go. we wonder what it would feel like if somebody reached for our hand first. if somebody thought to bring us our favourite snack because they remembered we’d had a difficult week. if somebody looked around a room and instinctively searched for us. we pretend we want extraordinary love, but most of us are only asking for ordinary attention. to be noticed. to be remembered. to be held inside another person’s everyday life.

and when nobody comes, it is so easy to believe that something has gone wrong. i know that feeling.

i know what it is like to unlock the front door and be greeted by silence. to make enough tea for one without meaning to. to hear something funny and realize there is nobody in the room to turn towards. i know what it is like to wish, with a kind of embarrassing sincerity, that someone would ask how your day was and actually wait for the answer.

but maybe this season is asking something else of us. maybe life keeps placing us in these empty rooms because there is something here we have been postponing.

i know you want someone to see you. i know. i do too. but maybe life is teaching us to become witnesses to ourselves. so i make tea.

i make it because i still deserve warmth, even on the days nobody is here to hand it to me. i leave the radio playing because the house feels less empty when music wanders through it. i sit by the window when the afternoon light reaches the floor because if nobody is here to notice that i have made it through another difficult day, then i will. i will notice.

i will become the person who says, “you made it home.” i will become the person who asks, “have you eaten?” i will become the person who remembers that today was hard.

and maybe that sounds unbearably small. but i don’t think it is. i think there is something deeply moving about refusing to abandon yourself while you wait for someone else to arrive.

because one day somebody probably will.

one day somebody will learn your favourite mug and the way your face changes when you are trying not to cry. somebody will notice when your laugh sounds different. somebody will know which version of your silence needs company and which version simply needs time.

but until then, i refuse to let myself become a stranger to my own life. if nobody is here to love me today, i will make the tea anyway. i will leave the radio playing.

i will sit with myself instead of running from myself. because i think that is what this season has been trying to teach me all along. before someone else becomes a witness to your life, learn not to look away from it yourself.

a small note before i go. i know this is a different kind of post than what i usually write. i think it came from the rain. it started raining in my city this morning, and it made me miss my person. maybe that’s what rain has always been for me. it has a way of pulling old love to the surface, of reminding me how deeply i want to be held, known, looked after. and i know i’m not the only one. i know so many of us are carrying that same ache, waiting for someone who remembers how we take our tea, who notices when we’re tired, who asks if we made it home safely.

but until that person arrives, i hope we learn to become witnesses to our own lives. i know how difficult that is. i’m the eldest child. i know what it feels like to become dependable before you become understood. i know what it feels like to carry burdens that were never yours to begin with. trust me, i really do.

maybe that’s why i’m hoping so much from july. i hope the rain washes something away for all of us. i hope it rinses the exhaustion from our shoulders and leaves behind a version of us that still believes there are beautiful things ahead. cook for yourself. make the tea. read the book alone. walk when it rains if you can. there is so much tenderness hidden inside learning that your own company can hold you too. it won’t replace being loved by someone else, but it will change the way you wait for that love.

and if the loneliness becomes too much, please don’t carry it by yourself. reach out to me. i started mixtapes by gor because i wanted to find people who feel as deeply as i do, and every conversation i’ve had there has reminded me that none of us are nearly as alone as we think.

i started People’s Archive for the same reason. if you’ve been writing, creating, or simply trying to make sense of your own life, i’d love to read it. submissions for july and august are open, and you can always send your work to gorsnewsletter@gmail.com.

i’ll be waiting. and until someone else reminds you that you’re not alone, let me do it instead. you’ll always have a place here.