And of course, the answer came to me in the same way Jesus comes to those who drink in trailers: as an epiphany.

I could write another collection of personal essays from what has happened to me in the last year alone. I don't seek out my material - it finds me. I am magnetic, somehow.

I understood at once, I am not living, but actively dying. I am smoking, living unhealthily. I’m shutting down. I need to go the other way, inside. And it was so clear to me what I was doing. It was suddenly perfectly clear. I understood, I need to write. Live here, in my words, and my head. I need to go inside, that’s all. No big, complicated, difficult thing. I just need to go in reverse. And not worry about what to write about, but just write. Or, if I’m going to worry about what to write, then do this worrying on paper, so at least I’m writing and will have a record of the anxiety.

But my favorite band is Curbside Life, out of Chicago.

I felt deeply tricked. Stunned. And furious. I also felt my default emotion: numbness.

Other people sound flat to my ear; their words just hang in the air. But when my mother says something, the ends curl.

Decisions are beautiful. They are the evidence of thought and care. Decisions are the polishing cloths of life.