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Notes on Yearning

 Yearning (noun): a feeling of intense longing for something.

 

Some days I wake up and the sun could be warm and comforting but I will still miss the rain and for as long as I remember, I was always the sort of person to be crippled by yearning.   

 

I long for the things I have, for the things I don’t have, and for the things I am yet to have. I don’t mean that maliciously, I just feel the ache of missing things so deeply in my chest. I miss feelings, people, thoughts, and conversations. I crave the feeling of the sun on my face, the sound of laughter, the smell of the ground after the rain. I miss gentle smiles hidden behind coffee cups and a bowl of dessert shared in the dark. 

 

I miss the people who have silently left my life but left a gaping space in my heart that they occupied once, and I miss the ones who left behind wounds that still bleed. I ache for the days when my friends were only a highway away when I could have pulled them into my arms at any time. I was too young and foolish to appreciate things like that. 


I miss the carelessness of youth and the feeling that everything was limitless. I long for all the opportunities I missed because I overthought them at the moment or thought I didn't deserve them. I ache for all the times I couldn't be there for a loved one because of physical distance.

 

I yearn for the past. I miss a time when food did not equal numbers, and I long for all the times I was genuinely happy. I miss the spark in my eyes and the versions of myself that are long gone. I ache for a time when I didn't understand my hurt because understanding hurts more than ignorance. 

 

I yearn for what I have yet to experience, a type of restlessness that makes my legs jitter in anticipation. I ache for things bigger than myself. I pine for the people I’ll meet, the milestones I am yet to accomplish, the places I’ll walk to, the books I’ll read, and the feelings I’ll explore. I yearn to be held and listened to, and I ache to be loved unconditionally, the way I love.

 

Sometimes, I yearn to be gone. To leave without a trace because sometimes it feels like I am not worthy of remembrance. But I also long to be heard and remembered. To be known for a smile, or a scientific journal, or some words I poured out of ink and emotions at 3 AM.

 

It seems like to be alive, we must constantly ache. So, perhaps, all this yearning makes us human. Maybe we’re kept alive in all the places that reverently burn or quietly bloom. Who is to say that the buds that blossom don't yearn to be seeds once more? 

 

-hammie

1:45 AM

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