I live in a bubble. A bubble surrounded by mountains, postcard scenery. Separated from the rest of the free world, I spend most of my waking hours in a community of like-minded folk: artists of varying mediums, friends, family of my choosing. We are careful about the meat we purchase. We watch endless documentaries. Our haircolors change with the seasons, our decisions are often politically responsible, we take action for the greater good, we take care of each other. We have work-life balance. We blanch kale and are never without an array of reusable grocery bags. And the shows. My god, the shows.

But it's heavy today. I'm sitting here in silence, freshly under the weight of realizations. I thought today about the validation people must get from their parents when they accomplish things. How, as you get older, if you have a healthy dynamic with your mother and father that they love, encourage, and appreciate you as you continue to walk into adulthood -- always your parents, but now a fellow set of adults, elder as they may be. How I've done so much and changed so much that it would be amazing to have them see this, to fly to Seattle, to stay in the home I've built with friends, to get a glimpse of my life.

Comforted now by the click of the keyboard typewriter on the laptop, I come here to this blinking blank screen (when I'm not buried in my paper notebook, ink-stained hands) for cleansing, for solace, for the attempt to untangle the knots or to relieve the weight or to try and figure out how to rearrange everything so I can carry it while it's mine to bear. Click-clack, click-clack. And in this particular series of moments: these knots, this weight, cursor blinks -- I don't quite know where to put everything. Any of it. The night will go on, I will go to the store and bake cookies for the potluck tomorrow and I'll edit photos and rearrage those two songs on the mix I just made, because I've been listening to it in the car this week and really think the Rentals should come after Weezer, not before. But I'm still struck dumb by the realization that this week, my mom has been dead for five years, which means this Christmas my dad will have been dead for ten, and how earlier today I wished that they could come and visit and see my life after having not thought particularly much about either of them recently.

I'm good at putting things away. Getting it all in order. Organizing. But there's no math for this, no floor to clean, no actions to take. I almost feel like I just look down and saw blood on my shirt and can't quite discern where it came from, even though I know everything I've done and seen today, and can account for all the places I've been. The melancholy I'm struck with just walking down the street is tangible.

These are the grey days.