MTHRFCKR. / Comments

Dear Conner,

I guess I sort of forgot what heartbreak was like. I don't know that I've ever really experienced it, but I'm feeling it right now. The worst part is that it's not strictly mental, it's not all in your head. Every time you think about it there's a tug in your chest, your heart is literally aching. I don't like today.

The universe isn't specifically targeting you and me 100% of the time? Hard to believe.

I'm sorry that your summer is going to suck. I don't know what to say, I never know what to say. If it makes you feel any better, mine is too. I don't want you to be unhappy. I hope it gets better. I honestly, really do.

Love,
Mae.

Dear Conner,

I'm not really sure. I think that if we went to high school in the same town, even if we didn't go to the same school, we would eventually meet. We would probably show up at the same places, have a few friends in common. I'm not sure that we would really know each other, though, I feel like we've established some sort of connection through this that we wouldn't have been able to recreate through conversations, because I'll be honest, when I talk, I hold a lot back. I don't say much about what I think, it's easier to just think what I think and let everyone else do the same. But then again, I feel like maybe you and I are supposed to be this, like the universe would make it happen no matter what.

Love,
Mae

Oh man. That wouldve been a nice one to use.

Dear Conner,

I'm sorry you're burned out, and I hope everything changes soon, because I miss our conversations, but no rush, I completely understand where you're coming from.

Do you ever wonder how different our relationship would be had we met under different circumstances?

Love,
Mae

Pretty good. Trying to deal with 14 year old bitties who think they know all on here.
You?

Dear Conner,

Are you alright lately? I don't know if I'm just reading into things, but you haven't said much, which is uncharacteristic.

You're my favourite, I love our correspondence.

Love,
Mae.

P.S. Stay genuine, Ponyboy.

Thanks how are you

Dear Conner,

I think I get bored too easily with everything, even the moon. I can't keep a lasting relationship because of it, and I can't study something for more than a month before losing interest. I took an astronomy class and we spent a while studying the moon and its orbit and the ways it affects the tides. It was an interesting class, probably my favourite first semester class. The lab was fun too, I love looking through a telescope, and we got to do that every Thursday night. Or Wednesday. I can't remember. It doesn't matter. We had an entire observatory to ourselves most of the time.

I used to think I was really tall, but I'm not even six feet. I'm 5'11.5"

I don't think you're butch. I guess I just like girls with short hair, though. I think a lot of people look a lot nicer once they get rid of their hair.

I don't even need to be drugged for it to knock me off my feet. Last night in the early evening we started tripping balls on these shrooms I got from a friend of a friend of an acquaintance. I'm not too experienced with shrooms because they look so much like the lethal mushrooms that I don't trust myself or really anyone else to distinguish the difference, but last night, I just thought what the fuck. And I'd forgotten what it was like to live between dimensions for the night. It was like every colour was a tone of my being. I forgot the way the feeling sticks with you for days, I feel so elated today.

Love,
Mae

Dear Conner,

I think I like the stars better than the moon. The moon is accessible. We've been there multiple times, odd are, we'll go again. But the stars are more magnificent, they're unreachable. And I think that's more inciting.

I'm having trouble paying attention to this comment because I'm listening to Bo Burnham's album for the first time and it's hilarious and distracting and I keep on laughing at my computer screen like an idiot. He just said "Catho-lick my balls."
I love summer days. I love the Daily Show. I went out last night, just me and Teej, like old times, we stayed out all night. I didn't get home until the sun was well in the sky. I've missed that feeling. Every time I watch the sun rise I feel like I do when I see it on new years, it's like I've got a new chance to start over. I keep on feeling that lately, I keep on changing my mind. It's weird.

Love,
Mae

Dear Conner,

I spent Friday evening and night at an "art park" that holds a First Friday festival each month. It's sort of like a neighborhood of shops and things, a few small independent art galleries, a few sculptures, a few murals, a thrift store, a 24 hour coffee place/vegan restaurant, all independently owned shops, and a lot of hippies and stoners. It's a really great place to go on the weekend, but on First Friday everything stays open late, and everyone comes to hang out. Everyone who went to high school or college in my town has been to First Friday, whether they hated it or not. A lot of people just don't think it's their scene, and I understand that. It's kind of sketchy feeling place if you're alone. There's a drum circle, and the harikrishnas sell food at a booth. Everyone is lighting up in the middle of the road, there's a live band on each of three "stages," people are loud, people are stoned, drunk, tripping, shooting up. It's more of a place to go on a Friday night than anything else. It's always been one of my favourite places. It's really nice in the day time, it's bright and you can climb on the statues and eat in the garden and every few Sundays there's a peace rally. But at night, everything really lets loose. I think you would like it. I went there with a few friends and met up with a few more. I ran into a lot of people that just got back in town, and it was really weird, seeing all of them, talking with all of them. I don't know why that place means so much to me. I think it's probably because I had my first kiss in this town there. Or it might have something to do with the fact that there's always something going on, that no matter how many times I go, it's never static, but still the same at its element. I don't know. But I love it.

Saturday was average. It wasn't mediocre, just a normal day with normal feelings and normal activities. Sunday was mother's day. I am not a mother, and I hope to remained that way. But I did get something for Brittany. It was nice. We spent time together, our little family. I guess we're a family. I wouldn't really know.

Love,
Mae.

P.P.S.
Happy Birthday, Mae.
I hope it's a great one.

P.S. I don't think they really care, I think they just notice.
I also have a website that I want to show you
it's super trippy
but I've lost the link so I'll get back to you on that as soon as possible

Love,
Mae

Dear Conner,

I just never know what to ask, I don't know what I want to know, I just know that I want to know it. Does that make any sense? It sounds muddled, but I think it's clear, isn't it? I don't know. I just don't know anything today. It's been such a fantastic day. It's probably the last day of Spring, and everything just feels right. It's like the universe is saying that today is supposed to be great, it's supposed to be that lazy kind of day where you're not supposed to go indoors. My brother skipped out on his exam reviews to stay home today, and we've just been in the backyard taking hits and rolling down the hill and leaning against the fence and having these really great conversations and bothering the neighbors with our music. A few of my friends have dropped by and stayed for an hour or two, a lot of people that just got back in town finished with exams. It's been a nice day, I haven't been inside until now. And I know that people always talk about how when small talk gets pathetic it turns to the weather, but I don't believe that. I think that the weather is the earth's expression, that it's a part of nature that we can't escape. Sometimes it's destructive, but it's always magnificent. It's the one thing left that controls humans instead of letting itself be controlled. It's unconquerable. I'm really stoned.

That's a lot to think about. I like to keep myself busy a lot. I keep myself doing pointless tasks that keep me from thinking too much. They distract me, and I start to forget how confused I am about existence. And that's how I'm spending my life. I've decided that I really don't want to be a lawyer. Obviously I hate it. I've always hated it. And I'm realising that it doesn't matter what my parents wanted me to do. I guess I sort of thought that by doing what they wanted me to do with my life, I would be pleasing them. But there's no one to please, and I've always known that. I want to be happy, I just don't know what really makes me feel that way. What I really don't want though is to look back on my life in ten years and wonder why the fuck I ruined my future by getting into a profession I can't even stand and find ridiculously boring. I don't want to be bored with my life. I think I have commitment issues, or just a short attention span. I get bored with everything, even people most of the time. Not people like you, though, Mae. You're one of the people that has so much to them that I'll never truly be able to figure you out. You're layered. Like an onion. Or a parFAIT. True Life: I'm Donkey. And you're never going to burn out, you'll never get boring, you'll just get more dynamic as you go on through life.

I think that I may be slightly dyslexic.

I don't remember what I've responded to in this comment.
I keep on getting distracted by these bizarre things.

You mean a lot to me, too, Mae. I look forward to hearing from you all the time. You're my favourite.

Love,
Mae.

Dear Conner,

Reading over it, it doesn't seem so bad, I don't want you to think I'm whiny. I think broken is the wrong word, damaged seems a better fit. Because broken seems like we're still in pieces; I think that the both of us have got it back together again, and we're moving forward from it all, but still not fully recovered. Maybe that sounds stupid. Maybe it is. But I don't really care. I want you to feel the same way, anything you want to know, I'm open. There are so many things I want to ask you, but I don't know what they are yet. I can't think of the questions, but I want the answers. I want to really know Mae, more than I already do.

I get that feeling all the time, but I think that we may experience it differently. I start to think that the world is too bizarre, that there's no way none of this can be here. That there's no way I can be here. I start to imagine that the people are gone, that the trees are gone, the earth, the stars, and I start to wonder what really [i]is[/i]. Because what can there be? How can there be anything? I don't understand so much about our existence. I ran into my religion teacher the other day, she's a total old hippie, she's brilliant, and we were talking at the supermarket about that. And she told me that it's alright to not know, that since the beginning we've been trying to figure that out, and that's where all conflict really comes from. Not knowing our purpose, not knowing our origin. And it didn't help much at all.

I'm really glad you're so responsible with drugs. I'm done with everything addictive, it's too dangerous, it consumes your life, and it's bizarre how there are entire cultures built around it. Some drugs are almost cult-ish.

I love you too, Mae. You're the most beautiful person I know.

Love,
Mae.

Dear Conner,

Reading that comment, I learned more about you than I have in every correspondence over the past three years. I never knew any of those things about you, but I'm glad that I do now. I love Mae, I'm sure I would love Melanie just as dearly. I think it's really inspirational how you became the person you wanted to be, how instead of just dreaming up your ideal self, you made it happen. But at the same time, it's really sad to me that you were forced to do that, it makes me angry at the world for ostracizing you so much that you turned to a new reality. I feel like it still is you, maybe with different actions, beliefs, and looks, but still at your essence the same exact person. I guess I can't truly gauge how much you changed, since I've known Mae since the beginning, but I really love Mae.

That year was something for me, too. It was maybe the worst year of my life so far, and I was depressed and exhausted and irritable. My parents cut me off for good. I was kicked out of the house a few weeks after my sixteenth birthday, and I was basically left with shit. I kept on telling myself that it was alright, that I didn't get along with my mother or stepdad anyway, but it's a terrible feeling when your own mother doesn't care if you exist or not. My car broke down and I had no money to repair it. I had no place to stay, I had a year of savings from my job at the music store that had just fired me as they were going out of business, and I knew that it wasn't going to last me long. I had to stay in my car for a few nights because there was no way I was going to ask anyone for help. I showered in the school locker rooms and ate at friend's houses for four days until I found the cheapest apartment possible. It was $250 a month, and it took me forever to clean it up to living condition. And I pretended that everything was okay. The few people I told offered me help. I told people that I was fine, that I had a place to stay, that I had savings. I got a job, it didn't pay much, but I worked all the time. I partied when I wasn't working. Riley and I were together then, from December to some point in April or May. She got pregnant. We fought all the time. We got in a car crash, and we had some minor injuries, and she lost the baby. But that's okay. We were on our way to Planned Parenthood. We couldn't support a baby, and we knew it. We still fought all the time, I partied too much, I never really talked to her about my problems. And God knows I had problems. So we broke up for the first time. I started sleeping around more than I ever had. I was a total bro, every weekend I'd get smashed, and every weekend I got laid. Eventually drinking got boring. I did bigger things, things that could kill me. I got addicted to some things, and I didn't tell anyone. At that point my brother was living with me. He came out to me eventually. That was okay, though, I've always sort of known. I spent all of my money on drugs, I started falling behind on rent, I started getting really hungry. So I stopped. I went through withdrawals for about a week, and it was pretty tough, but I don't remember much about it. And money was tight for a while after, but I sort of started to recover. When I was seventeen, my parents died, and the only thing they left for me in their will was a statement that, since I was emancipated and my brother had chosen to live with me, we were not their children, and we would receive no inheritance. My sister, the Harvard-bound golden child, got everything. She got the house that she didn't need, she got the cars, the money. And she offered it all to us, but we refused. Eventually we moved back into the house, and Teej moved in with us senior year. But when I was eighteen, I received my trust fund, which they had never gotten rid of. I've been living off of that ever since. I've told you about Brittany and Brendan. And now I'm nineteen, and I've got everything that I need, and I'm happier now, and I'm not depressed, and I'm not broke, and I'm good. And you know all of that. And that's my life.

She most certainly was.

Love,
Mae.

Dear Conner,

I love how it responds as its own being. How it's such a part of me that my emotions dictate its existence. I feel as though it's almost the opposite of time, moving faster as seconds drag on in tense anticipation, slowing down as time moves faster at a steady pace.

When I'm running, I can feel everything about myself. I can feel my muscles tense and release, my skin cooled by my artificial wind, my bones, my heart pounding, my lungs steady, my entire body like a machine built with the single purpose of movement. And I feel like I'm moving so fast, I feel like I'm rushing, but I have all the time in the world. Sometimes I feel like the only person in the world who knows that feeling, maybe because I am. I know dozens of runners who do it just because they're good at it, just because it's good for them, but they don't understand how euphoric I am, how much I truly am in my element. I feel like it's what the body is meant to do. To run. Not to or from anything, not because there's something chasing us, but because there's something pulling us. A cosmic force just ahead, urging us on. And if we run fast enough, we can reach out for it, come so close to nearly touching it. But until then, it's enough to let it be, to let its radiation pull us in, let us feel the perfection it holds.

I turned 19 exactly two months ago today.
I went through the last few pages of your comments, and the very first comment I left you was Feb 22nd, 2009 at 11:30pm

I was 9 days away from my sixteenth birthday. I still lived with my parents. I commented you on my birthday, too, the day that my sister got a new car and I got her 1999 Navy Volvo x70. And I commented you on the day that I drove Riley back to the catholic school and she smoked her first cigarette.
Dear Mae, we've changed so much in three years, haven't we? I know I have. I look back on who I used to be, and frankly, I'm embarrassed at times. It's been so long. We thought we were so grown up, didn't we? We thought that we were sixteen going on invincible. I hope I've figured things out.

Happy nineteenth, Mae. I hope it's a great one. You're among the greatest, I feel like you'll change the world one day. I feel like you're one of the few people actually worth knowing in life.

And for the record, I lied in one of my first comments, I wasn't too sure what your views on sex were, then. I got kicked out of catholic school for fucking the president of the Bible studies club on school property. (Twice).

Love,
Mae

Dear Conner,

As I was reading that comment, I was doing that exact thing, two fingers at the dent between my collar bones. I don't think of the heart, I don't think of blood, veins, pumping through, I just feel the way it pounds through my body as a single life force, as if the beat itself is an independent force.

You want to know what I love the most? I love it when I'm running at the crack of dawn, the time when I'm truly alone, even the interstate is nearly silent. The only thing around me is reality, and I hear the pulse each time my foot hits the solid ground. I love the way I can run in the darkness, because I know each dent and root like it's my own. I love how I run past the same strangers each morning, the way our passing nod is an unspoken bond. I love hitting the pavement as I leave the trail, running past my neighbour's houses as they're just getting up, lights switching on, illuminating the nearly black pitch. But most of all, I love getting home, kicking off my shoes, and jumping straight into the freezing pool and sitting still on the bottom as long as I can, because that's when you really know freedom: when you can exist in an entirely different element. You're not tied down by technology, by appearance, by social norms or feeling, you just exist, and everything is natural.

I love the way you call me a friend. Every day I'm introduced to someone new as "My friend Conner," but the way you say it is more of a compliment and a genuine sentiment (there's that word again) than any way anyone else ever has. Genuine is my favourite word to describe you, because it sums you up as much as any word could, in my opinion. You're real, you're raw, you know what's true. You're sharp and brilliant, and you really live, you don't just exist. And to me, that's Mae.

Love,
Mae

Dear Conner,

I love the way it makes my heart beat faster and stronger, the way I can feel everything I'm doing, the way I can sit and focus or get shit done fast. The other night I took 80 mgs of 12-hour slow release Vyvanse and spent about 2 hours on the floor of my room staring at a lava lamp.

I love road trips. The real kind, not the cliche movie sort with normalcy, but the kind where you end up painting a mural in some guys garage in Connecticut for no reason at all. I don't like rain, but I love storms. I love the power of the universe. I love pretending to believe in karma, the way there just might be any sort of balance in the universe, but I know it's not there. But I love my friends, too. I love the way we can relate and still be all sorts of different people. I love how they're not generic and probably insane, I love how they're genuine. I look at all of the people I see, all of the people I talk to, and I feel like there are certain people that aren't normal, but not in a bad way. Like they're a different breed, like they actually know what's going on, like they'll actually change the world some day. You're one of those people. You're probably the most genuine person I've ever spoken to.

Love,
Mae

Dear Conner,

I dunno.

I'm so stoned. There are several reasons I love my brother; he's very clever, he's hilarious, he doesn't let me get away with dressing poorly, but most of all, he's an expert on pot brownies. I've been listening to the Beatles since I got home today, I skipped out on plans and I've just been in my spinny chair with Sugarbear singing along to the box set. I've only left to go to the kitchen and talk to Teej for a while. I feel nice.

Love,
Mae

Dear Conner,

That sounds amazing.

I think my head is fucked.

Love,
Mae