When it was my choice not to be seen or known, it felt different. It was something I held for myself, an unwillingness to compromise with everything else around me. But now that it’s not my choice, I feel stubborn and frustrated and rageful at times. Removing the choice to be seen or known or touched makes me stand at the edge of myself and look back without solace anymore. And I know how to comfort myself. I know how to keep a schedule, be independent, cook, stay focused on my work - boredom isn’t something I’m concerned with. I move, I cycle, I dance, I step in the ocean, and walk barefoot. I know all the things to stay chopping wood and carrying water. But it’s not enough and I know it. It’s not truly living. The whole world is fragmented and disconnected all at once. Beating saucepans together to hear who is still here. I don’t want to mitigate the moments of joy I still find with ease, the optimism I have, or the knowledge that this is temporary. But I don’t want to adapt to this, even though I am. I feel myself fighting against this becoming normal. I want more from this world. More physicality, more melodrama of a fight that ends with more, more intimacy, more choices, more travel, more collaboration, more of life. I won’t let that burn out, I’m adding gasoline to it every night. It’s cheap right now anyway.