Only ten minutes away

 

"I used to write so much and it's a shame I never wrote to you regularly. Fuck it. I'm gonna start writing now."

***

Did you really think I wrote a few hundred words because the quarantine was getting to me and I had nothing better to do? Hah. People like me invented the quarantine (minus the virus jbtw). All around me I keep hearing friends and colleagues and acquaintances talk about "the good old days" and how it's just too much staying at home, and I understand — I really do! — but some us embraced this life a long while ago for reasons of our own.

I should be in bed by now. I have a meeting in the morning. But see, that's the great thing. I can get out of bed 10 minutes prior to the thing, comb my hair, and turn the webcam on, fresh as a baby pea from a pod.

Oh, the pictures? That's the tomato plant I grew from scratch, which I keep raving about. It has dozens of flowers but no fruit yet and I feel like a desi MIL wanting her child to have their own child soon.

***

This is a difficult week. Elise is leaving. Sure, we spent only six months together but I was warming up to the idea of a longer stay with her. Us taking turns to cook, going on hikes, discussing the ins and outs of the world of various branches of feminism (cue JKR), sometimes watching TV together with Falo, but really just living under the same roof. Today I was leaving the house to return a package and saw through the corner of my eye her empty room, boxes all stacked one on top of another, and her dismantled bed on the floor. Something in me shifted and my heart has been hurting since. Last week, she asked me how I deal with change and I told her I pretend it's not happening until long after it happens.

I don't know what our lives will be like without being able to exchange our good mornings and good nights and see you laters with her. Often, when Falo and I binge-watch stuff, we'll hear the front door click open and know it's her. Now? Now we'll never know who it is.

Anyway, she's moving only ten minutes away. It's going to be alright. I'll check in here if it isn't. Or if it is.