Change rarely comes gradually in my life, but often by surprise. One moment I’m in one place, the next moment I’m somewhere completely different. I never expected the events of the last month. I never anticipated going back so soon: packing boxes, sorting books, braving up to goodbyes.

There is no one-way ticket, just a twelve-hour drive on winding roads, surrounded by red rock and cacti. Before I realize it, I will be in familiar company in unfamiliar territory. We leave, we grow, we come back, and things are never quite the same.

And maybe I go through what I go through to remember that there is still so much to learn and discover and be grateful for. And when I’ve all the discovering and learning in one plate, it is time to encounter it somewhere else.

And I am grateful.

Despite this craziness, I have never felt myself more than I do right now.

You find yourself, one afternoon, standing in front of the hallway mirror, thinking, I am young. There is still plenty of time.

You are young. And there is still time.

But you then turn on yourself and wonder if this being single business isn’t about being young or time, and if it’s really just about you as a person, and if there is something extraordinarily wrong with you, that someone somewhere forgot to turn on a switch, or maybe there is wasn’t a switch to begin with, and as this run on sentence goes on and one in your head, you turn away from the mirror and put on a smile, because the party is waiting.

Certain things really grate me in a work environment: disorganization, the stealing of pens, mainly nepotism. I like my job, just not the last couple of weeks. I am ready for a long holiday. My flight isn’t until Thursday, but my suitcase is open on my bedroom floor, half-packed with clothes and presents, and a desire to be gone.

Lately, I’ve been teetering back and forth on the edge, worried that one morning I will wake up to the chalk mask: heavy as concrete, lost in the four corners of my personal gray room. I don’t think about it too much. I can’t. Instead I push through the day. I mechanically file papers, type, answer the phone with a smile, and make an effort to be less selfish.

“I took a deep breath and listened to the
old bray of my heart. I am. I am. I am.”
- Sylvia Plath

“How long has it been?” he asks.

I stare at the whiteboard, at the blue smudges of ink, and then look at the tips of my red pumps. I even close my eyes, just for a moment, because it might help me remember. It doesn’t.

“That long, huh?”

I look up, and give a one-shoulder shrug. “I guess. I didn’t realize. I mean – I did realize, but I didn’t…”

He shines a light in my eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. After this he places a stethoscope to my back.

“Breathe deep,” he says, and I do.

I breathe deep, sucking in the still air and scent of rubbing alcohol. He moves the stethoscope to my chest. I wonder what he hears, because I only think of Plath, and how I want to hear the old bray: I am I am I am.