Pass me by

There is a word for this but I can't remember

The weather is changing. We’re wading into deep summer in Texas now. Slowly, the days are getting shorter, even as the heat remains perfectly bearable this year. The grasses that grew knee-high from all the lovely rain are beginning to show that subtle yellow tinge. The ease of the season will soon give way to the rhythm of a new school year—palpable even when you’re outside its clutch—and the sense of a new beginning nested in another ongoing cycle.

My small, intimate world is changing with it. Briskly, these past few weeks. Thresholds have been crossed so swiftly that I nearly missed the markers. Since coming home from my month-long residency in Slovenia—one of the greatest adventures of my life thus far—I made a series of decisions that brought to my life a new intensity.

Desiring to challenge myself yet again, I accepted a promotion that significantly shifted the scales of my work-life balance. The thrill of growth is there, naturally, as is its discomfort. I am still recalibrating my time and energy management so that I can fill the hours before and after work with something beyond decompression. Right now, I’ve been getting home too exhausted to innovate in the kitchen or read longer than half an hour.

Before I even had time to settle into my new role, a gut feeling pushed me to make the quick decision to adopt a cat that a neighbor was seeking to rehome. I say quick because stray animals and for-adoption pets do get quickly claimed in the neighbors Facebook group. There was little time to contemplate. Now, Michael and I live with a one-year-old tuxedo cat we have named Loki. Sweet-tempered, affectionate, and playful, Loki teaches me something new about companionship every day. With a cat to now take care of, my list of responsibilities has grown a little longer, but I like to think my capacity for love has stretched with it.

In between busy hours, I revisit the nearly-finished manuscript I drafted in Ljubljana and chip at it word by word until the work has said all it needs to say. Progress has, unsurprisingly, been slow. I’m anxious that my writing will fall behind, on the brink of being forgotten, as I allot my finite energy to urgent day-to-day matters. Every day is an exercise in accepting where I presently am, especially when it is so far from where I wish to be.

In juxtaposition are key moments I missed these past few weeks: a good friend’s beautiful wedding, family trips and reunions, opportunities to deepen new relationships. Most recently and devastatingly, the death of my grandmother. With the help of my cousins, Nanay and I had one video call the day before she passed. She was lying in a hospital bed, barely able to speak. I was taking this call at work, and it took a lot of restraint to maintain my composure as I tried to talk through the desire for intimacy that the awkwardness of screens made difficult. There were many things I could have said, but I mostly wished I could reach into my phone and hold her hand in tender silence. I’ve never been great at verbal affection. I think sadly about how easy it would have been to make more calls before that last one. I think, too, about how I had allowed the clutter of everyday life to postpone what would have been so easy to do. I think about what it means to love someone. The privilege and duty of it.

Wave after wave comes. Some I feel prepared for. Some drag me under, at least for a while. The simultaneity is stark, like watching the most stunning sunset as fire ants leave burning bites on my legs. My mind misty with both hope and worry for tomorrow as I think about unfinished work and the possibility of new ones. Being present in the company of friends while grief hovers not far behind me like a shadow. Celebrating a milestone feeling alone. Loki curling up next to me, bringing comfort, in the middle of a hot, restless sleep.

In the morning, neither loss nor joy will deepen the hues of dawn. I will feed my cat, drink coffee, drive to work, carry my loneliness, love the people I still can, pursue the dreams I still have, blow a candle on my birthday, write poems good and bad. Everywhere in the world, my own and the one we share together, both acts of love and unspeakable horrors unfold in a discordant chorus, and if I sit still I feel them all in the air. Ash and pollen in my hair. Before long, it will be autumn.