Going Nowhere: A Collection

-They Keep Me Warm-

11/24/2013

I remember this one time I was with my best friend and we were leaving the school theater and I stretched out my hand to lead her to the exit and she grabbed it. I remember not thinking about it, as if it were a normal thing for a girl and her best friend to hold hands, because it was a normal thing, why wouldn't it be? Until I guess she realized what we were doing and started feeling awkward, and of course we let go of each other's hands and kept walking.

I remember feeling somewhat guilty, what would people have thought had they seen us? The thing is that I come from a school in which girls don't hold hands with girls; they hold hands with their boyfriends, a place where it was allowed to be affectionate with your best friend, of course, but be careful, because gestures can be misinterpreted. A place where if you hung out most of the times with a girl, they called her your "wife" and started making jokes about how "you two are married."

Someone told me my best friend was my "girl crush" and I actually laughed about it and referred to her as such. Now I think it's absurd that we grew up with the need to categorize everything, to interpret every hug, every nice word. Maybe she just kissed me on the cheek because she loves me and felt like doing it, maybe it's her way of saying "thanks for being my friend," that's possible, isn't it?

We live in fear that maybe one of our gestures is misinterpreted, and we often believe people are sending us signals when they are just being nice and friendly. Since I started uni I've changed and I've been able to question all these things. I have been lucky enough to find friends who are not afraid of expressing their love towards someone, and I believe in many ways they've helped me. I have, for example, been able to tell them I love them, that they're special to me, that they matter, and I've been able to say those things to my best friends, to thank them for being there with me and for me.

That may not be the way in which things worked among us, but it's nice to change, to open up. My new friends, my hoenies, have told me many times how pretty and nice I am and how much they enjoy spending time with me. And it's hard to believe them when I didn't get such compliments in such as spontaneous, out-of-nowhere kind of way.

With my best friends we said such things through letters. At first we wrote them for no reason at all, and they'd say things like "hey, I just wanted you to know you're one of my best friends," but again, as we grew up we started restricting the letters to special occasions only, and we got to the point where everything (or at least that's what we think) has been said.

I don't think I have written anything to my hoenies, although I have written a lot about them. I think what I appreciate the most about them is their capacity to love, to hug me even when I refused because hugs "were not my thing," to kiss my cheek out of nowhere without it being weird because, why would it be? But I also appreciate that they understand opening up has not been easy for me because for fourteen years life was completely different.

And, yes, I wish it had worked some other way, I wish I could have told my best friend she was pretty without it sounding like I had a crush on her, I wish it wouldn't have mattered to me that people thought I had a crush on my best friend, but for some reason, other people's thoughts were more important than my own feelings.

At least I have this timeto make up for some of the things I didn't do or say, and at least I have more peoplewith whom I can share the love I feel, without overanalyzing anything because akiss on the cheek is just that and it is a nice gesture. Nothing else.