I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home

I love the idea of solitude being a gift. I think we can be afraid of being lonely, but if you figure out a way to own it and see it as a treasure and a pleasure and a joy, then it can be quite comforting. I have a place to go in my head that’s just my place, and no one ever gets to that place. I value that alone time so much. I wouldn’t be able to

An attraction to that which was absent. A sketch, an outline, never fully formed, but still, it existed as an idea. Filling in the imaginary blanks with information I did not have but found I could invent quite easily. A thing we do as writers. If we just give ourselves permission. But also, there was something about simply feeling the sense of the

To experience joy through the joy of others. He sees that as a gift for him. My sweet friend.

The ultimate privilege, for me. A house I have for myself and can open up for others. A room for them to stay in. The fight was never for a room of my own. I always had that in my head, no matter what. I was always going to write. It was the fight for a room for someone else. To open up my home—and myself—to others.

I loved. I had lovers. I was loved by others. I knew it, that feeling. But I didn’t have true partners. I had collaborators. I had people I made shit with. I had people to talk to. I had people in my life who understood me as much as I could be understood. A few mentors. More substantial than romantic love, I had friendship. That I knew best of all

We knew soon enough our view would change. I began to be wistful and then reminded myself: We’ve had a good ride.

But what if we let time pass, looking at an incident in the rearview mirror rather than at the moment of impact? We can wave goodbye to it, but still see it so clearly, captured in a pristine reflection. And what do we gain? Perspective, wisdom, and perhaps not acceptance—some things do not deserve to be accepted, after all—but at least a sense of

There are times we just send out messages into the world and hope they are received with the intention they were sent, but we can’t always count on the attitude or the generosity of the recipient. There is a certain benefit of the doubt we must give to messages transmitted electronically. We cannot read the sender’s expression, we cannot hear their

At sunset, I walked down to the water and I sat at a small table on the edge of the Gulf of Naples, and out in the distance was Mount Vesuvius and I had an Aperol Spritz and my bloodstream was a good 30 percent Aperol Spritz by that point in the trip but I felt like I would somehow be betraying something if I did not have just one more Aperol Sprit