interlude: windows.

my old life lives right down the road.

I am slipping out the front door, baby screeching while dad puts her down, milk dripping out of both boobs. Bitter, thin air catches in my throat, harsh wind on my face comes as a relief. Trip over my feet, once reliable and now alien. Plod towards the old mill building where I used to live, a short downhill walk from where I live now. Big, beautiful windows, I can sneak a peek into a hundred lives—peep cat scratch towers and twinkle lights, spiral staircases and tasteful photo gallery walls, giant televisions flashing Netflix and video game scenes, wine bottles on the counter, sinks running. The humdrum, post-work routine showcased in dozens of neatly lit up boxes. I can walk around to the deck overlooking the river, listen to the rushing water and pretend I am allowed to be here. Imagine it is just yer average winter night, a night like any other, and I am walking my dog like I do every evening, surefooted and unhurried, down the dark hill, swiping my key card, going up to my quiet apartment. The scenery is the same but nothing else is. The closer I get, the thicker the feelings, the easier it is to step back in time. I gaze up and see rows of identical black cupboards, the high ceilings in each bright space. I can find the exact spot, 3 up and 2 over. I can look into my old life. It lives just down the road, right here. I can walk back and check on it. Remember the fluffy carpet and the things I felt, how bored I was, how I’d sit and watch the train go by and think about how I didn’t belong here. How this will always be the place where I found out about my first pregnancy, where I felt my baby kick for the first time, where I cried and cried and laid on the couch binge watching Euphoria when I was sick with COVID, and planned my wedding, and sometimes wished I was somewhere else. Where I laid awake at night and wondered what my life would look like a year from then, which is now, which has me thinking about then.

How something that you thought meant absolutely nothing to you makes you feel things.

How the tint of a rose-colored retrospect can simultaneously distort and clarify.

How when you think nothing is happening in your life, something is, and time is marching on, and you might even miss this, right now, right here.

I climb the hill, walk back to my new life, baby crying upstairs.