But I won’t do that, not tonight.

Gerard DuBois

This new job has my nervous system on overdrive as I get used to its setting and culture and people. I drive home in silence most days and I lay on the floor once I get in the house. I know I’ll get used to it, and this overwhelm will pass, but for right now I feel no energy to write every night. This is just what’s on my mind right now.

I keep dreaming that I still live in Moab. These dreams sometimes have me doubting if I made the right decision by moving home. As if right decisions even exist. I just wonder if maybe there was more for me there. I wonder if the air smells different in winter. I wonder what the desert sand looks like covered in snow. When I look back on it, I feel such a fondness for that town and the friends I made and the job I had.

This time of year has me nostalgic and melancholy in general. I just got done crying as I was washing tonight’s dishes. There was a song playing that reminds me of my dad, just as everything reminds me of my dad this time of year. There is a small kernel of anger I hold towards myself for feeling it this deeply even still.

I went to Cub foods this week and instantly remembered why I never go to Cub foods anymore. I was overwhelmed with the absence of you. The smell and lights and floors and all of it took me back to being in there with you. Sometimes these memories are so sharp that it feels like they are happening in real time and you are still alive. I can hear your voice and feel you walking beside me as I push the cart. I am scared that this sharpness will someday fade. I am scared of forgetting what you felt like and sounded like and who you were. There will come a point in my life where I will have lived more years without you than I had with you. I do not want the scales to tip in that direction. I want you to come back.

I feel the urge to run. I could burrow deep into that desire and convince myself that it’s best to leave again. But I won’t do that, not tonight. Instead, I am headed to the grocery store and when I come home, I am going to make a cup of tea and I am going to hold its warmth in my hands.