You in every memory that doesn't hurt.
You in every reason I have to keep showing up.
You in every version of a future I'm trying to believe in.
They tell us to write about what we miss. About what grounds us. About the things that remind us why we're fighting.
Every time I try, it's you.
It’s made me realise, all I want is to experience every part of lifewith you. The boring parts. The scary ones. The quiet ones where nothing happens except us existing together.
I never fully understood that saying "home is wherever I'm with you" until I found myself somewhere that doesn't feel like home because you're not there.
You are my home, Len.
And right now, I'm so fucking homesick I can barely breathe.
I'm getting better, though. Slowly.
Some days are harder than others. Some days I don't think I can do this. But then I remember the way you’d look at me—like there’s something worth saving there—and I find a way to keep going.
I hope you're okay.
I hope London is everything you dreamed.
I hope you're writing and thriving and building the life you deserve.
And selfishly?
I hope some small part of you is homesick for me too.
— Nate
Week 18:
Today the memories came hard and fast.
They keep telling us in here not to romanticize the past, that we need to let it go because it doesn't exist anymore. That there's only the present, only right now, and holding onto what was will keep us from moving forward.
But they don't tell you how to do that when the past contains the only person who ever made you feel like you deserved to exist in the first place.
How are you supposed to let that go?
I guess the reason I keep walking down memory lane is because I love running into you there. It's the one place I know I'll find you, even if it's just an echo.
I see you everywhere, Len.
In the way the sun hits the windows in the common room here. Inthe way the moon rises every night and all I can do is wonder if you're watching it too, wherever you are.
Do you remember all those nights we stayed up trying to figure out constellations? How we'd make up our own meanings when we couldn't remember the real ones? How you'd point at random clusters of stars and tell me stories about them like they were real?
I see you even in the color green. I can't look at it without thinking of your eyes.
You're woven into everything I am now.
Every good memory I have. Every moment that felt like actually living instead of just surviving another day.
You're there, braided into the fabric of who I've become, and I wouldn't unravel that even if I could. Even if it would make this easier.
