There was always the possibility that New York would keep him, as it so often does with people like him. I’ve never met a city with stickier fingers for talent.

It’s time to come home now, isn’t an appropriate text to send to anyone except your own child playing too long in the streetlight. Instead I send a dinosaur gif saying hello, which is more appropriate and makes less sense. When you make less sense than the norm as a rule, you get these freedoms.

…

There was always the possibility that she’d close out the relationship like a dinner check, but I kept hoping we would have a magical amount of courses.

I don’t accept, isn’t an appropriate response when your therapist tells you she’s retiring, so instead I say congratulations, thank you, this is so exciting for you. There’s plenty of notice, plenty of space between where I am now and where I’ll be when.

It will be hard to find someone with as much pull; I’ve always liked her gravity.

I wonder if you can float, without floating away. She says yes, but there’s no need to float. She says that’s not a normal sound for a garbage disposal. She says New York is not a mousetrap and that my friends are not mice, anyway. She says I’m doing my best. She says I’ll be okay.

This shift will be hard. I’ve always liked how I believe her.

…

I have to call the plumber. I have to call the dentist. I have to fix the clock on the microwave and buy new oven-mitts. I need to begin with new therapists so I can have a gentle transition, and I need to get back into a routine of physical therapy.

Instead I maintain my Wordle streak, wear my weighted blanket like a robe, smile at a gaping space in my mouth where a tooth should be, as my garbage disposal gurgles like it’s haunted.

It doesn’t make sense, and these are not the right choices– but I like that I landed on them with both my feet firmly on the ground.

I can hold words down. I can hold texts back. I can hold myself up.

I guess I like my gravity, too.