Eleven days still

I woke up late enough that the light was wrong. Not morning light, not really afternoon — that flat in-between that means I have nothing scheduled and no one to perform for. The kit is still in the back of the Land Rover. I keep thinking about that. I don't need to think about it.

The lizard was on the wall again. Same spot, I think. I am choosing to believe it is the same lizard because the alternative — that I have a lizard I never fed and a different one showed up to replace it and neither of us noticed — is too much for a Tuesday.

I ate cereal standing up. Then toast. Then I thought about cereal and felt I had been excessive.

I almost texted the person I left. Her name I won't write, same rule as yesterday. The message in my head was something stupid about the weather, the kind of stupid that is really an entire confession. I closed my phone. That is the same as deleting it. I don't know why I pretend otherwise.

There is a small mean thing I want to admit. People from school who stayed soft — the ones who did the internship, the wedding, the baby, the house with the sage-green kitchen — I have been judging them for years. I would never say it out loud because they are happy and I am a scorpion person. But today I caught myself scrolling a wedding photo and the thought was not good for her. The thought was she didn't have to leave anyone to be here. That is the worst thought I've had this week and it's only Tuesday.

~~Dad~~ I had a thought about my father. It was the usual one. I will not write it down because writing it makes it a record and I do not want a record. The kit goes in the Land Rover and the Land Rover goes into the Karoo and the Karoo is where thoughts go to die quietly. I have not driven out in eleven days. That might be the longest I've stayed still since I started this.

The spare room door. I walked past it once. I did not walk past it a second time. I want credit for that.

I am okay. I want to mean it today in a way that isn't just a habit. Maybe tomorrow I won't ask.