September 24th, 2025: Lake George

I've been there, once, took a boat ride on the lake, the early teenage years when I thought I knew heartbreak but didn't. On Friday morning, I woke up at seven and got into my car, taking an extra drive before my weekly bakery trip, the bakery I went to the morning after it happened, when I gave my friends a warning about the state I was in, which I could only describe as, I feel shattered. I've been driving with no direction, lately, but Friday's drive had a purpose, to listen to an album straight through, to experience it in a more all-consuming way than sitting in my bedroom with my earbuds in. Sometimes these things come to you right when you need them. I drove past the Cumberland Farms with no destination in mind. It was a test to my poor sense of direction: I drove until I recognized something and followed the signs. "Lake George" played as I found my way back to my house, and kept driving, now on my way to the bakery. I've been waiting for this song, since the now-deleted Instagram Reel that first teased it, but I had no idea, then, the way that it would hit me. I am no longer deep in my heartbreak, I didn't feel the same way, at least not anymore, when I heard Ashe sing the thought of you anywhere makes me cry. I'm no longer shattered. I can remember the way that the pain felt in my chest, and I still drink ginger ale, I'm drinking it right now, even though I gained my appetite back and the nausea went away. Remnants of those first few days are still here and I'm okay with that, not because of the hurt but because I fought off the nausea. I returned to myself. I've seen the place you were born, she sings. I haven't, but I've shown off my own birthplace, and it was like holding up a mirror to myself, the whole time, all of it. I didn't realize the mirror was broken somewhere along the way. I can see myself clearly now, the glass repaired, some smudges overtop of my reflection. I think about myself, fourteen, on the boat on Lake George, and I want to apologize for looking into that broken mirror.