I tell everyone before I leave that I am excited for this trip. “It’ll be good to see family,” I repeat. But there’s nothing I can do to help him. There’s nothing I can do to make it better. Or make it less bad. Or change anything. The space behind my sternum feels thick and weighty when I think about this.
Years after I fell in love for the first time. I moved out to the desert to be with him, needing nothing except the spinning of the earth and its wide, flat expanse. Desert winter is something else. It’s as if the volume gets gradually turned low and everything goes sleepy.
It went from creepy to funny to totally okay. Internet stalking reminds me of being labeled “nerd” years back. What was once so not cool now has everybody claiming, and to be honest I kind of like it.