their way into my dreams , but wouldn ’ t play on the commercial alternative radio station I listened to every day . I don ’ t really dance anymore , but I ’ ll nod my head in time to the music as I open a new tab in my browser and try to figure out what it is that I ’ m searching for . Sometimes I ’ ll manage to focus on the music though , and my shoulders will start to bounce and sway in time , and I ’ ll remember : I used to love music , odd time signatures and crackling feedback and strange sample loops , I used to study music , I used to teach music , even , what if I taught music again ?
Most nights , I look at social media for at least a little while , for long enough to send memes and messages to the few friends I haven ’ t yet withdrawn from , even though it o en feels like I ’ m trying to make contact with them from a spaceship that ’ s slowly orbiting a planet in a neighboring galaxy . I still haven ’ t figured out how to communicate how isolating grief is , and maybe I never will . On some nights I try to write about it , I ’ ll lie back on my couch and conjure up bereaved fictional characters who are trying to connect with the people around them , or I ’ ll open my journal to a blank page and try to describe my mother and stepfather , both for myself , and for potential , someday readers who might need to hear how it felt to be guided and cared for by loving parents . On nights where I don ’ t feel like writing , I read , fiction and essays about loss and parents and children and despair and survival . Pretty much every night , I think to myself , it won ’ t always be like this , will it ? If I get married and have children or stepchildren , which is what I want , I probably won ’ t be be able to stay up late listening to music and journaling , right ? Maybe I won ’ t want to , maybe I ’ ll be able to sleep , finally .
I stare through my laptop screen , and I try and fail to picture myself as a partner and parent . I ’ m overwhelmed by this feeling that it ’ s too late , or that I ’ ve been too disconnected , too ‘ emotionally unavailable ’ for too long to build fulfilling relationships of any kind , to have any kind of friends or family . Is that how she felt ? Like she ’ d never be happy or love or be loved or wanted ever again ? Is that what kept her up at night , too ? My mom paces back and forth through my mind and between my crib and her bed again . I can ’ t imagine moving forward , and I can ’ t imagine the future that I want .
Except that I do imagine it , even if indirectly : when I give my fictional characters hopeful endings with found and chosen families , when I write about how my parents grew up to be happy and functional despite their own unhappy and unwell parents , when I hope for another teaching job someday , when I think again and again , night a er night a er night about this