There’s a cat on my chest.

I am burning beeswax candles, and the air in my room is cleaner. Easier to breathe.

My brain has latched onto some horrible thoughts, which are seeping through the rest of me in the shape of a horrible feeling. This feels like… like the shock of accidentally drinking tea that’s gone bad a couple of days ago. My nervous system is stubbornly determined not to let this shit go, and it’s getting to be decidedly uncomfortable.

There are times when I have a clear sense of direction, and the ground under my feet is comfortably solid. This is becoming more common.

But sometimes there are moments when I’m navigating blind, without a compass… and the world, when I can feel it there at all, keeps sliding away from me.

It depends on the weather.

The tough thing, I think, is to keep going. Even when I feel shaken and lost.

Other people have gods to turn to. In the absence of certainty, at least there is some kind of faith.

The faith that I do have mostly belongs to the trees and the stars and all the things about the universe that won’t be discovered until after I’m gone, if they’re ever discovered at all. This world is so beautiful. It helps keep me wanting to stay.

I have this notion that even if I don’t know what I’m doing, even if I make a terrible mess of everything, I will somehow be able to figure things out, and learn, and grow, and repair things if they get broken, and grieve properly when things are lost.

Even if I’m wrong, it’s nice to think that I might not be.

A much harder thing to believe is that the same kind of resilience can exist between and among people who care for each other.

I have seen broken understanding and awkwardness and resentment and exhaustion tear companionships to pieces. I have lived through this. I think most people have.

I was just a kid, and it bruised me a little.

It does me so much good to stumble across old companionships that are still beautiful.

Not because they’ve lasted a long time, exactly. Time isn’t the thing that matters. The things that’ve happened in all of that time… those mean everything, I think.

Some of the things that happen over time are going to be difficult. That’s how it goes.

And so, when I find things that are lovely that have also existed for a while… I think about all of the things that they must have been through. Made it through. Scratched up and dented and held together with tape and string in some places, but more or less whole, and still laughing.

This gives me more hope that I can put into words.