One time you said to me, "I wish I could just be normal."
I asked what you meant, and you said you were not anxious all the time. Always overanalysing, always overthinking. I told you that there is nothing wrong with you.
You didn't believe me.
But I want you to know that it is because of you, that I find happiness in all the little things. I remember one night you and I stayed too long at the drive-in, long after the movie ended. It was spring, and it was breezy, and the sky was clear enough for the first time in a while, and you could see all the stars. I was sitting with my face tilted up to the night sky, you were reading a comic book, and I had my legs across your lap, and I remember thinking that this is it. This is happiness.
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In her ongoing project (Don't) Hold That Thought, Alexandra Sarah explores the concept of automatic writing, also known as psychography, in which she lets herself be inspired by the images she photographs, and writes down the first thought her subconscious produces upon seeing those images. Then she gives life to those thoughts by combining them with the images that inspired them, in the form of subtitles. The artist attempts in this way to 'debunk' the societal concept of a "normal" thought process, by revealing that no individual can ever truly be "normal"; we are all abnormal, unique, and beautiful even in our darkest moments.
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We cannot be normal. We never will be. But we love each other. At least, in that, we are doing something right.
