- Vol. 10
- Chapter 08
Stray
I moved in last Winter, during a storm, literally and emotionally, and I paced around the living room reading Mrs Dalloway, because sometimes a chaotic mind needs a familiar to feel at peace. It was not quite home but home for the foreseeable, and I had yet to make it feel as such, especially since there was no sofa (six to eight weeks to arrive) and hardly any furnishings. But Spring came suddenly, and I soaked up the sun that shone through the sash windows. I took ownership of a new life in an old house. How many others before me had started a new chapter in this one bed? Eventually curiosity got the better of me and I took myself outside and explored, wandering through alleyways until the town became a part of my personality.
I put photos on the walls. Photos were performative illustrations of the life I wanted and the life I needed to present to potential visitors. It’s easy to overcompensate when you live alone. Overthinking a given, I could picture the paramedics checking for signs of a life beyond my body after I’d choked on a fish bone or suffered a heart attack.
“Well, at least she seemed happy.”
Alone is a choice, lonely is not. I wanted to be touched but left in solitude. Contradicting myself over and over. I’ve been told that’s normal for what I’ve been through but the emotional inconsistency is the biggest frustration and, if I’m honest, I’ve never known anything other than inconsistency. Moving from one place to another through no choice of my own has resulted in a changeable mood and an obsession for order, minimalism and simplicity.
Stray
Except, one day in May I had a visitor. My routine was disrupted and I was nervous yet captivated. You said you wanted to take me on. While you felt the presence of my past, you understood. You let me lay on your lap and talk to you for hours, and held me in your arms even when I was arrogant and anxious.
Despite how many things get my back up, how many scenarios scare me senseless, I am, somehow, here. With you, and with myself, for the first time ever. How completely terrifying and extraordinary – I love it.