mine all mine

on seeing through others and giving yourself away

🫖 Hi, hello, welcome. I hope you enjoy today’s insecure musings. Writing has been a catharsis lately when I’ve been feeling a little more cursed than usual—I will ride that while it lasts. I hope it can bring you some comfort, too. 🫖

It’s raining and I want to be let in. I want to have a cup of tea in the back of your skull and see the world as you see it. This is not meant to be an intrusion, but the most honorable visit. I’ll behave back there. I won’t cause a stir. I’ll sit quietly and try not to chip my cup in a clumsy clatter.

Julian shows me a photograph of an eroded construction block at the beach, remarks on how its roundness is more perfect than something purely manufactured. Alyssa reveals the value of space and time—the clarity found in her move and an unexpected sense memory she experienced abroad that moved her to tears. Roman and I discuss a book that helped him come to terms with grief more than any other text. Alex and I share the ways that friends have hurt us and look at each other with sympathy and disbelief. Conlon explains that you can choose someone today, and choose someone tomorrow, and not worry beyond that. Evana proposes that she has learned more from hurting people than getting hurt. Thommy sends me a text mocking my favorite author that makes me laugh uncontrollably on the G train.

It is a privilege to see through the eyes of my friends. It’s a challenge to look at life differently, grapple with ideas, see how they fit. It’s a reminder that there are so many ways to experience this world. Even if I cannot live every life from start to finish, I can still experience a taste as a tourist. I was never the type to ask for samples at the ice cream shop. I like to commit to one big scoop and try not to be disappointed if I don’t like it. I’m too young to be frozen solid; I suspect I can soften my approach, learn a thing or two from the people around me. If people can thaw, people can change.

//

If you’re interested, I’ll put a pot on my own stove. Offer you a mug of coffee and a place to sit on the ornate-but-uncomfortable loveseat in my frontal lobe. Try not to strain your eyes, as I often do, looking so hard at everything and everybody. You’ll burst a couple of capillaries and be forced to admit that your very first glasses prescription is on the horizon. You’ll put it off until you turn twenty-eight, like your brother before you. Stay for a while, if it suits you. You’re welcome to peruse the dusty stacks of unread Vanity Fairs. Try not stumble over the brassieres and polished marbles and bottles of nail polish strewn around on the ground.

Oh, but I’m just being precocious. What would it really be like to look through my eyes?

You can look at me in the mirror. Who would we see? Are we a pretty girl? Do we take out our earrings at bedtime? Is our manicure chipped but unbitten? Are we fidgeting around or can we stand still? Are we a little scraped up and bruised? Do we still deserve love? Do we worry that no one cares if we live or die? That we’re not special? That no one would notice us in a crowd? That our ability to read a room is so warped that we are oblivious to the signs that all our friends think we’re annoying? That everyone finds our writing mediocre and cringe? That we are selfish and delusional, crying for help online and incapable of saying the right things to the people that matter? That we are an acquired taste? That we are an archetype? A photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy? A meme of a meme of a meme?

Oh, but it’s not so bad all the time. In the mirror, we might also see a healthy, functioning body. We might see a person worthy of sympathy. We might see that we aren’t fucking up life monumentally; that we are doing alright at our jobs and our writing. We might acknowledge the flaws in our outlook and communication and know that they can change with work. We might be excited to do this work and hopeful about the ways it will make our lives better. We might feel tentatively confident in our decency. We might accept that we don’t know anything, but we also don’t know nothing.

//

At the atmospheric Moog concert, I was flooded with empathy. Aquarium music, I remarked to my date. All of those heads facing forward in the darkness, swaying gently could have been a colony of kelp on the ocean floor. To my surprise, Public Records looks more like a sauna than a club venue. Colleen gently directed the energy of the room with the ambient sounds of her brand new album Le jour et la nuit du réel, which veered carefully from peaceful to devastating and back. My thoughts wandered.

I wanted to feel every broken heart in the room, to test if it would break me. I wanted to fall in love with every crooked nose in Crown Heights and every pair of hand-me-down corduroys in the Lower East Side. I wanted to exfoliate my fear of commitment by moisturizing my commitment to excellence. I wanted to toss back my gruff veil to accept the wet, sloppy kiss of true romance.

The music charged me to a nearly manic state. Seated, at last, over two glasses of beer, I ranted about how I don’t want to own anything in this world. Possessions, people, houses or cars. None of it.

That’s just the way the world works.

Earlier in the week, I was told I was dreamed about. I wonder if this reverie mismatched reality. That night, I wanted to sleep alone. I disappeared with a Judas kiss.

Ruminating on the ride home, I texted a friend that I want great love. I was disappointed to realize that I was back to square one. Without fault, without blame, this just wasn’t it. Beneath the fluorescent lights, I listened to Mitski’s “My Love Mine All Mine” on a loop. In my ears, she crooned the mantra: Nothing in the world belongs to me but my love. Mine all mine, all mine. These lines distill the very essence of how I want to walk through this life. All you can have is what you give away. Life’s challenge is finding the right people to pour your love into.

Shortly, my phone vibrated my friend’s response.

—i hope i am not smothering you but you truly deserve the world

—looking at you feels like life and time could go on forever

Subway tears in realizing that I already have big love. Lots of it. Mine all mine, all mine, all mine.

---

This is where you would usually find my mixtape. I’m sordidly not in the mood today, so I will simply leave you with the song that inspired the essay’s title. You should also listen to Colleen’s new album—you’ll especially like it if you’re into Mort Garson’s Mother Earth’s Plantasia. As always, you can listen to the full archive of all songs shared on Insecure Tea on Spotify or YouTube.

🫖 Thank you for being here! A like or comment goes a long way. If you are interested in supporting this project financially, you can also consider upgrading to a paid subscription. One of my most beloved paid perks, Doxxed, drops later this week. I daresay it will be a good one. Until next time, CM. 🫖