A New Playlist

Talked some more about Bryce today, and two small things landed that I didn't have yesterday.

One — the part of me that kept insisting there were still "unfinished lessons" in there. I think that was just a respectable-looking doorway back to him. The truth is I already named every lesson in that birthday letter — inner peace, assertiveness, spontaneity, authenticity, forward motion. The course is finished. What's left is just living them out, and I don't need him present to do that. "I'm still learning" was the INFJ version of staying.

Two — the Chinese songs. Every single one somehow routes back to him, LMAO. But of course they do; that whole genre is built to summon longing, and Bryce is just the most recent face I've filed under it. It was doing this before him too. The music isn't reminding me of him. It's reminding me of wanting.

So I did the small, healthy thing instead of writing another grand closing paragraph: I made a new summer playlist. Called it 26X2. 182 songs, all upbeat or wilderness or the present kind of love — the Jordan kind. Let the associations re-bind to the life I'm actually in.

First time a Bryce-adjacent entry ends with me doing less instead of resolving harder. That feels like the real progress.