Magical Thinking

I have been having strange thoughts about your aesthetics. How you wore these black rubber bangles for a year or two. How for a while you wore eyeliner on your top lid only, then switched to the bottom lid. Rarely both.  My style was flashy, yours was strikingly simple. With a strong emphasis on striking.

I remembered how you mocked the gold lipgloss that I got from MAC during Arun's wedding. You said "priyanka, only you would buy something like this". Later you took that MAC lipgloss from me. Ha!

I remember our matching burgundy pants that we wore constantly. Like the Osho's. We were deeply attached to those pajama like pants.

I remember us smoking our first cigarette together and you promising me that you wouldn't smoke anymore. Then the following summer I came back, and you were smoking regularly. Yet even in that, you were so moderate and controlled. No more than 5 a day. Whereas I would do a pack or nothing. We were different in those ways. You could do the middle ground, a lot better than I could.

Did you know you were going to die? I have often wondered this. 

I knew. 

I now say it was because the statistics on stage 4 breast cancer, in young women is pretty dismal but really its because of magical thinking. The type of thinking that goes like this, bad things happen to me and people I love. Around me, the shittiest possible outcome, is the most likely outcome. I sometimes wonder if you were someone else's best friend, would you have made it through? If I were not in your life, would your chances of survival be magically higher?

I know that this is illogical and likely untrue. Knowing and feeling are not the same.

You sent me a text message in July, asking me to let the other girls know that you loved them. Did you mean for me to do this in July, while you were perfectly capable of texting them, or after you were gone? I am not sure.