notes i didn't finish

on standing in front of a wall for way too long

things i thought tonight, roughly in order:

that mural’s been there for months and i’ve never once stopped for it.

okay i’m stopping for it now.

the light’s doing something. is the light doing something or do i just want it to be doing something because i’ve already decided i’m writing about tonight.

a man is walking his dog and looking at me like i’m being strange about a wall. i am being strange about a wall. i’ve made peace with this about myself, mostly.

i should write this down.

i’m already writing this down. some other part of me started the sentence before i finished deciding to stop walking.

four minutes. that’s all this was. four minutes and a stranger’s dog giving me a look i deserved.

---

i called zoe after. she’s known me three years, since we got stuck together in a green room for four hours during a shoot because the lighting guy was having some kind of crisis, and she’s been correctly clocking my behavior ever since.

“you do this every time,” she said. “you get the writer face. i can see it happen mid-sentence.”

“what’s the writer face.”

“it’s like you leave the room but your body stays.”

i didn’t argue. she’s never wrong about this one. she also didn’t let me change the subject, which is the other thing about zoe — she lets the joke land and then keeps going anyway.

“so what were you actually thinking about,” she said.

i told her i didn’t fully know yet. that’s not me being mysterious. i genuinely didn’t.

---

more things i thought, less in order:

i have forty-three voice memos on my phone titled “idea.” most of them are me saying “okay so —” and then nothing. dead air. me deciding mid-sentence i don’t actually have anything.

i think that’s what most things look like before they’re anything. not a plan. just a stupid number of unfinished thoughts and one wall that finally made you stop walking.

i’ve been telling myself for a while that i’m building toward something bigger. essays maybe. a collection, if i ever get over being too precious to commit to it. i don’t say this out loud because saying it out loud means i have to actually be accountable to it.

saying it now anyway. quietly. to whoever’s still reading.

i don’t know what shape it’s going to take. i don’t know if tonight was research or just a tuesday. i genuinely can’t tell those apart anymore, which might be the actual problem, or might just be what it feels like right before something becomes real.

---

the top photographs better than it has any right to. the cross was my grandmother’s — no story, before anyone asks.

neither of those things is actually what tonight was about. tonight was about standing in one place too long, getting side-eyed by a stranger’s dog, calling my best friend and getting roasted for a habit i still haven’t fixed, and not being able to switch off the part of my brain that’s always quietly turning whatever’s in front of it into a sentence before i’ve finished living it.

i wrote four different versions of this post. i’m posting the messiest one. not because it’s the best — i genuinely don’t know if it’s the best — but because it’s the one that didn’t pretend to have an ending.

i still don’t have one. that’s where i’m leaving it tonight. 🤍

---

the frames

---

frames i kept

rest of tonight’s in there. 🤍

---

the edit

cream draped halter top — photographs better than it deserves to

gold cross necklace — grandmother’s, no story, stop asking

---

a note

this one’s messier than usual. i kept it that way on purpose, including the part where it doesn’t really end.

thank you for reading the unfinished version instead of waiting for the tidy one.

---

support soft notes

i write this instead of going to therapy.

if you want to chip in for the oat lattes that make it possible —

🤍

---

want more of this?

paid subscribers get the forty-three voice memos, basically