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

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

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

ha. I make a deal with myself that the first thing I will do upon entering every hotel room is unpack my dresses. I invent a ritual for safety. If I do these things, if I hang these clothes, if I keep them clean and neat, if I tend to them, then it will be the same as tending to myself. I mistake control of my outward appearance as architecture for

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

And how do you explain that nearly no one is good enough, it has to do with how much work you put in, your diligence, your persistence, some fortune, some luck. And I suppose it has to be with your willingness to imagine things that aren’t there. They didn’t need me to give them permission to live their dreams. No one had ever given me permission t

I would not trade my relationship with my brain for anything—it has always served me best; it is truthful, reliable, powerful; it solves problems; it makes art; it helps me to be of service in the universe. It is my reason for being.

For a second I was so sad and tired from this endless cycle of men being men, and women having to deal with it. We cannot win.

Solitude is better as a block of time than as an entire existence.

I had started meeting with a new therapist, a young woman—my first in probably six years—but felt lackluster about the experience, as I usually did when I tried that sort of thing, only ever lasting a few months with each one. (I always felt like I was trying to entertain them—this was my fault, not theirs, of course—but surely the right therapist