I wish I told you

I wish I told you

SF, CA Last Monday (July 15)

I wish I told you than I knew you were coming before they told me.
I wasn’t surprised when mom said she was pregnant with you.

I wish I told you about how fear lives in the crevices for everyone.
The forgotten part by others but the only part you sometimes still remember.

I wish I told you that the days you feel the most beautiful are ones where you actually can’t see your own reflection in a mirror or camera lens.

I wish I told you I knew you would be a professor the first time I met you.
That your love of learning and the study you had for this life I could see you in front of a classroom and doing research.

I wish I told you that in open water I still fear drowning even though I know every single stroke and have multiple saves as a lifeguard- knowing really, I could float forever.

I wish I told you when I got too small or exercised too much that I was actually struggling.

I wish I told you I always knew you would break up.
That in the pit of my stomach I knew there lived more darkness than light.

I wish I told you that I knew your love of books would always be more than a pastime that I saw you surrounded around books forever.

I wish I told you that ever once in a while I google you to see if you are alive.
And it is fucking strange you married someone with my name.

I wish I told you I remember running down the stairs of our beige carpet just to make sure I told you I loved you.
Scared I would lose you too.

I wish I told you that there are still moments I still wonder about the what if about you. 

I wish I told you I still wish you would go to therapy.
And you too deserve to actually heal too.

I wish I told you I love taking pictures of people when they aren't looking to see the world from their eyes.

I wish I told you that you still scare me.
That the anger that lives in you is the anger that lived in all the men before you.

I wish I told you that I like how you tell me the truth like no one else.

I wish I told you to go to your grandparent's house more.
Or your aunts and uncles.
Or your honorary family.
Stay overnight.
Get tucked into bed into adulthood and let them make your breakfast, lunch, and dinner orders and stay around the table for as long as you can

I wish I told you what it is like to love a child of a good friend.
I wish I told you I would give up a lot to see my mother, grandmother, grandfather, aunt, uncle, friends again for even a few minutes other than in my dreams. 

I wish I told you I fear your death.
And I wonder if you are starting to lose your memory.

I wish I told you that sometimes I know things before they happen.
And I have always remembered feeling that.
When the medium asked - I said yes- sometimes- in a room full of people.

I wish I told you the best days are never the holidays or the pre fixes or chasing the best night of your life - you will get so many- they are always by accident and never on new years eve.

I wish I told you that I am so proud of myself for being here. That we can survive family systems of alcoholism. And family dinners like the one in the Bear that you had to fast forward through. 

I wish I told you there is no such thing as broken families and every family is complicated and really beautiful love can exist in the struggles. 

I wish I told you to stop chasing things.
And crumbs will never make a full loaf.
Let it all percolate. 

I wish I told you to start traveling more earlier.
Stop waiting for the perfect moment or the perfect anything and just go and just go scared if you have to.

I wish I told you that so much discomfort and misunderstanding is really rooted in all our childhood plays in the present. Reassigning roles of theater. 

I wish I told you that the truths you knew as a child are more complete and truer than most adults.

I wish I told you that the comfort you feel will grow.
Grow beyond what you thought would be possible.

I wish I told you that you can decline a wedding or the 17 events before it.

I wish I told you the strangest thing about aging is hair in new places, somehow getting injured while sleeping and caring a whole lot less about the shit that used to matter. 

I wish I told you that you will literally change someone's life so many times.
So many times, we all lose count.

I wish I told you that even in confidence and spaciousness fear coexists for me too. 
I wish I told you write that message now.
Right now.
I just wish I told you.