Ribs

Since my last birthday, I’ve been thinking a lot about getting older and how much it terrifies me. My bones aging means my mom’s bones aging means my grandma’s bones aging means the dust is coming to pick someone up soon. I don’t know how prepared I am for the day that I find myself poring over old text messages with my mother, sending new ones just to feel the connection but knowing I’ll never receive another one from her again.

I’ve been thinking a lot about losing the few friends I have. That one day these funny Tiktok videos will just become catalysts for frigid grief knowing that their eyes will never see them and we’ll never get to share the laughs.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’ve been living in isolation but more emotionally than physically. I feel so alone sitting with these bitter truths because when anyone gets too close to feel the heat of my depression, I hop on my boat and build another island. “Sorry, the connection’s real bad here, I’ll get back to you soon.”

I truly feel like I’ve left to go someplace and never returned. This shell feels so hollow. The suspicion that I don’t really exist in the minds of others has been particularly strong lately. And that if I do exist, I exist in restaurant receipts and forgotten napkins with my lipstick. Only traces. Fragments.

I’m starting to feel a lot like the first time I learned how to drive. Anxious. Embarrassed. Alone. Yearning. “Can you see me about to make my first left turn, pedestrian? Are you proud?”

I open the window each morning, not to let fresh air in, but to let my exasperated sighs be meaningful to the nearby trees. I may feel empty, but maybe I am helping the trees feel fed. Full-bellied willows swaying with the songs of windchimes, will you give me the strength to keep going?