a letter to the girl who didn't know about TimTams (me, 30 days ago)

We thought it would feel better when the wheels left the runway. It didn’t.

hey babes. I’m sorry it took me so long to write you back. Life has been overwhelming… for both of us. You’ve lost a lot leading up to this, and you’re giving up a lot to take this next step. But you keep showing up—smiling, arranging, making space for everyone else—while bottling it all up, because there’s always someone around. You carried the grief around like a second passport, hidden, but scanned at each gate. I’m sorry I haven’t been available. I’m here now and I wanna answer the question you keep asking: when is it gonna end?

To be honest, it doesn’t. You expect a clean-slate at take-off, but actually you’ll be mid-air, clenching your jaw as a 70-something woman from Öland gushes admiration for how the US treats immigrants (lol). You’ll humor her for 15 hours, because that’s easier than sitting with yourself. 

This feeling—the pressure at the back of your throat, the ache behind your eyes—you carry it through customs, into the cab, into the new apartment, dragging your luggage behind you. You subscribe to it with each app re-download, despite swearing them off before. You add it to the shopping cart, the food order, into every binge, scroll, and self-justified splurge (“I’m nesting,” you’ll tell yourself). You know better, and it’s okay. I won't shame you for coping. Sometimes coping is emotional avoidance... and gets you an A2 Duolingo badge.

Between the dopamine highs, we’ll sit in the dark with that sunset lamp you ordered for ✨vibes ✨, intermittently crying without knowing which part of it all that we’re crying about—and seriously, how are we crying this much without any water intake? Eventually we dry out, and we find what we’ve been avoiding: anger. 

At first we think it's the situation. Then the people around us. But now I know... I'm mad at you. 

Mad you didn’t see things as they were.
Mad that you tried to revive what was expired.
Mad that you were so scared of letting go, you shrank us.

The weight of your fear crushed us. No, literally—being a human cushion every night for a 6'4" man who didn't love you back wrecked your joints. Lugging a backpack for months with all of your possessions, waiting for someone to choose you, destroyed your knees. Holding your breath every time someone on Zoom politely asked, "how was everyone's week?" while mourning death? Acid-reflux. You were so nauseous from swallowing your grief while mediating the same argument your parents have had since you were 15, that you had to pull over and throw-up on your drive to the Westside.

This is your 30's, baby! We're too old for this. 

I don’t accept it anymore.

So I stopped acting like you. I let go. Of guilt for reacting. Of needing to be ‘cool’ with things. Of protecting people from our emotions. Of treating our feelings like a problem to be solved. I let myself be sad. I let myself be angry. I told people the truth. I asked for what I needed. 

And when I did? The bingeing slowed down (except for a couple heart-shaped pizzas from Ooshman…and a few bowls of Buldak ramen).

I started cooking, walking, and noticing. The sunrises are unreal. The time difference is a blessing. 

So are the people.

The baristas know my order. The flatmate and friends are thoughtful and inclusive. Someone we probably haven’t seen since 2018 offered an ‘afternoon with a local’ walking tour around CBD, like we were back on a Remote Year track.

Declaring boundaries has been a game changer. My hours worked match the project fees. I don't cancel on us to accommodate someone else's schedule. Turns out we don't die when we give the other person space to reply. Actually? Every time I've respected our boundary, something good has followed.

The best part of being here: there’s no rush. There’s no deadline or next trip to run to. It’s like climbing into a freshly made bed, stretching out, and exhaling. I can settle in for the first time in years. 

To be clear, it's still hard sometimes. New fears, old patterns, weird pangs of longing for things I don’t actually want. And yeah, I'm still working on forgiving you. But it doesn't change this: I'll always come back for you.

So back to your question, “when will it end?” I don’t know! Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it just gets quiet enough that you stop asking. And maybe peace isn’t the absence of pain. It’s the permission to feel all of it. 
​
I love you, it’s okay. 

xx zoë (in aus)