Feelings are nouns. There is so much space. This is the end.

For the first time since ever, we live in four different cities. You have your own calendars, bank accounts and plans. Though we spent months organizing as the transition to young adulthood neared, I still find myself surprised. I’m here with all my things and the left behind remnants of your things with the same pictures on the wall and the same world going on outside our door but nothing is the same inside.

In this spaciousness, time stands still. I remember everything. I take a tally of what I might have missed. I begin to excavate buried dreams from the suburbs of my heart. I’m reconfiguring the schedule and days and schedule of days.

I’m not mad about it- the spaciousness, the reviewing, the uncovering of nearly forgotten dreams, the complete reordering and imagining of my life.

Parenting is a prayer. Both literally and figuratively. How many people were conceived with an “oh my god!” and pushed out into this world with an “Oh! My! God!” and how many times did I collapse in prayer from worry or not knowing what to do or a toxic combination of both. 

Parenting you is the prayer that has bookended my days and nights and given vivid shape to the awake hours. This prayer is a ritual that provided unending meaning. 

Did you brush your teeth?

Tuck your shirt in.

Who will you be with?

Dinner is on the table.

Is the back door locked? 

This singular devotion has a compass-like quality to it. If ever in question, I would always first orient myself to you. For over two decades this was instinctively my practice. Without you, my compass has lost its magnetic field. It is spinning about, wild with possibility.

The pigeons in the alley have left, too. They must have found another place to roost. Do you think they have summer and winter homes? Are they coming back next year? The absence of my annoyance at the pigeons is prevalent. The rats are still downstairs, but we are just ignoring each other.

Chicago Cori said hello. The 32 bus is running again. Did you see Lil Nas X had a baby?

I only wash small loads of laundry now. I’m using all the shelves behind the bathroom mirror and it is kind of luxurious. There is only about one sink full of dishes per day to clean. There are seven turkey meatballs from Trader Joe in the freezer waiting for someone who eats meat. I’ve stopped filling the snack drawer. I figured out how to turn on the TV by myself and streamed a show. It’s actually not that fun watching something alone. There are so many empty hooks in the bathroom and too many towels to fit into the cupboard. There are no lights left on in empty rooms. Just empty rooms.

I think I’m really good at awkward conversations, like talking about sex over dinner like it’s the news. I’m good at making celebrations out of nothing. (I have a set of metallic pom-pom skewers all ready for an impromptu party.) I’m good at packing a group for a trip, stretching a dime into a dollar, making dinner for twenty people.

None of these skills seem particularly useful any more.

There was a small earthquake last week so I repacked our emergency kits. I have my own go-bag now. It’s kind of weird to think about that - like the very present emergency is that I am without you.

Did you know that a group of aardvarks is called an armory? You might see a bloat of hippopotamus, a troop of baboons, an improbability of wildebeest, a parliament of owls. Oh, my favorite is a flamboyance of flamingos. I looked it up online. These are called collective nouns.

What is the collective noun for these feelings I have right now? They also travel in a group, surprise me in an unknown way, and are both disparate and related at the same time. The group of feelings that erupt following the missing of a singular devotion. 

I did not know the depths of proud I could feel. The way nostalgia would creep in, followed shortly behind by either ridiculous delight or a debilitating grief. How powerful it would be to already know the difference between being lonely and being alone. I think this spaciousness will become me. I’ve paused myself in this liminal space between what was and what will be. The future is flirting, shiny objects and vast open spaces galore. The past also pulls to be endlessly chronicled and sorted.

This is the end.