That's the thing about pain...

I made poke for a party! It felt very fancy, but it was honestly one of the easiest party dishes I've ever made.

This blog is making me think I like things to be easy. I guess I just expected cooking to be more difficult.

I put pineapple, crab, green onion, sesame seeds and soy sauce into a bowl. That was the recipe. Dump things into a bowl. People were impressed. I'm getting this cooking thing down!

I added spicy tuna because I saw it on sale at the grocery store. Added some flavor. Mmmm.

Here's my story of the week. More of a snapshot of a feeling.

There’s a haunting and it’s you. It’s the way you look at me, your eyes unfocused, like there’s a cloud of smoke between us. Between everything. It’s the way you sit, not fully relaxed, like you’re about to make up an excuse to leave. Oh look at the time.

There’s a haunting and it’s the way you feel near me. Your breath held, it stiffens your chest. There’s some invisible string pulling tight, pulling you away from me.

It’s the way your smile seems forced or bored.

I wonder how long I’ve been ignoring this.

Maybe a day. Maybe a year.

There’s a haunting and it’s in my denial. The excuses that filled my head. The false explanations. And when my mind clears, there’s nothing.

It’s so much easier not to feel. To take a deep breath, squeeze my eyes shut. Open to find nothing. An empty apartment. There’s nowhere to go. Nowhere to be. The pillows lay unshuffled on the couch, the coaster, dry, unused. There’s a TV with dust. A whole year went by and nothing changed. Nothing gained, nothing lost.

At least that’s what it feels like when I feel nothing.

A couple days later a box of stuff appeared on my porch. No note. I’m keeping yours because I feel nothing. It’s ridiculous to see a person in a board game. A candle. A perfume. These are just things. I can lose things….but a person...A person drifts away and exists without you. And now I see that person haunts you.

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This episode gets me because I can relate to the numbness. Not the sociopathy. But the feeling right before things hit you----the numbness. I have days, sometimes months of it, of not dealing with things. It always hits, eventually. And it hits hard.

That moment of Liv loading up the video and finally crying….not just because of the brains, but because deep down, I know she believed he would wait for her. Part of her at least. I think people do that a lot.