The Wall

I miss being able to be soft. There was something about having her in the world that made me less armored. Not weak. Just less defensive. Less braced. Less cynical. I wasn’t constantly anticipating impact. Now everything feels harder, sharper, louder. I’m quicker to anger. Quicker to shut down. More jaded. More suspicious of anything that smells like false comfort. I don’t love that version of me, but I understand where he came from. When you watch the person you love suffer and die and all the prayers and hope and effort in the world don’t stop it, something in you stops giving a shit about optimism as a concept. That doesn’t mean I’m hopeless every second. It means I no longer trust life the way I used to. There’s a difference. She used to pull me toward the better version of myself. Or at least remind me that one existed. Now it’s mostly on me, and frankly some days I’m not that interested in the project.