hannah | Moving through the pain.

Some weeks ago, at the beginning of the epidemic, I reflected in a therapy session about the abstraction I felt about the situation: I recognized the danger of things, and I had no direct relationship to it, rendering it an abstract worry. But, I said, I understood that because I had no direct relationship to it, the abstraction was a good thing, because I hadn't yet been touched by it. Together, both aspects make for a delicate balancing act.

That bears out to the world more and more each day.

So I took a bike ride, raising it to about six miles. I did laundry, and began another Buffy fic I hope to carve into something small and gentle after I write the first draft and tell myself the story. I'm listening to The Suburbs, as I do every May, and it's hitting differently this year. It hits hard every year, because it's a good album and I save it for May so it's a touchstone work for where I was and where I am, and this year the lyrics about the promises of the future being torn and having no true home and the loss of childhood innocence and being told to quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock hit a little differently.

Both a the start of May, and the end of it.