Unfinished Business

Last night, my husband, lying in bed, turned to me and said,

 "God is keeping us here in Alabama a little longer for a reason.

 I just don't know what it is yet."

See, this is one of the things that first attracted me to him:

his spirituality,

his faith in the universe,

his belief in magic.

Not metaphorical magic.

Actual magic.

In our first month of dating,

we each slept with a crystal we'd chosen,

then gifted it to the other.

It was his idea.

The clear quartz point he gave me

still sits on my altar.

The raw amethyst chunk I gave him

still rests on his smoke stand.

So when my husband, lying in bed, turned to me and said,

 "God is keeping us here in Alabama a little longer for a reason.

I just don't know what it is yet."

I took it seriously.

I pictured psychic chains

tethering a ghost to a place

until it resolved

the unresolved business of its life.

And today I looked around

this place with renewed eyes,

searching for the soul contract

we made with this land—

the land we are so desperate to leave.

Do we need

to unite our home,

to end the feline civil war

that demands we keep one cat away from another?

Should we harvest and can

the tomatoes this summer,

so they'll sustain us

through the Hoosier winter?

Perhaps it's the neighbor

who waves goodbye each morning.

I gave him zucchini from the garden

and cookies I'd baked.

We still harbor resentment.

Or perhaps it's the leaky bathroom faucet

we still haven't fixed,

though the replacement parts sit,

silent and accusing,

on the floor.

Or maybe it's nothing.

Maybe we're falling into

the oldest human trap:

constructing

the illusion of control,

like OCD—

believing that locking

and unlocking the door

three times

can save you.

Please Keep Your Patience

I texted my dad that we were not going through with the house and explained why.

He replied, "I am sorry it didn't work out. Please keep your patience."

Forgive me, but that last sentence has been a pebble in my shoe ever since I read it.

Please keep your patience.

I read it once.

Then again.

Then one more time, trying to figure out what exactly he thought was about to happen.

Because I vaguely remember hearing that phrase from him when I was a teenager. And like most fifteen-year-olds, I had enough hormones pumping through my bloodstream, poking every brain cell, that yeah—I was on the verge of flying off the handle over the smallest inconvenience.

But I'm almost forty now.

I've been married for nine years. I go to bed by nine. I make balanced meals that we actually sit down and eat at the table. I do the laundry every week. Fresh sheets, too. I refill prescriptions before they run out. I compare insurance deductibles. I know exactly how much cat food is left before I need to buy more.

I really can't put into words how stable my life is compared to my childhood, when clothes might sit in the washing machine, wet for days—rank, stank, and mildewing—or dinner was canned green beans because there simply wasn't anything else in the kitchen.

So I kept coming back to that sentence.

Please keep your patience.

And the more I read it, the more it felt fearful. Maybe that's colored by all that pesky past stuff again, but it felt like he was bracing for my inevitable meltdown. Like he thought I might lose my temper. Freak out. Lash out like an animal.

But then I wondered if that was fair.

Maybe he meant exactly what he wrote. Maybe it's just something he says to people when life gets stressful. Everyone at the community center has heard him say it.

I honestly don't know.

What I do know is how strange it feels to realize that, at least a little, I'm still frozen in time for him.

Maybe that's what parents do.

They update your age, but not always your identity.

You can become a homeowner. Build a quiet marriage. Learn how to regulate your emotions. Spend years building a life that is so wonderfully, almost boringly stable that you forget stability was ever something you had to learn.

And yet somewhere inside your parents' minds, you're still fifteen years old, slamming a bedroom door and screaming.

The funny thing is, maybe he hasn't actually missed who I've become.

Maybe he just hasn't had the chance to see it.

Change is so slow from the inside. There wasn't one day I woke up and suddenly became patient. There wasn't a ceremony where someone handed me a certificate declaring I was now emotionally regulated.

It happened one ordinary Tuesday after another.

Unless you were there for all those Tuesdays, maybe you wouldn't know.

I can't really tell if I'm reading too much into one sentence.

But I also don't think it matters.

Call it reflection, healing old wounds, making amends, or whatever the fuck you want, but I feel called to call him today. If he doesn't answer, I'll leave a message. Not to convince him of anything. Just to let him hear, through my words and my tone, who I am now.

Maybe the phone call isn't really for him.

Maybe it's for the version of me that still wonders if she's one bad day away from becoming that fifteen-year-old again.

Or maybe it's simply because I'd like my dad to know that I turned out okay.

The strange thing about growing up is that you don't just outgrow old versions of yourself.

Sometimes you have to outgrow other people's memories of you, too.

I can fall in love with anyone in love with me.

I'm going to live life not let life live me.

The Algorithm Thinks I Need a Hug

Phones have this really funny thing they do now that they didn't used to. I really can't pinpoint when the change occurred, but change it did. Everything is connected in these strange little strings that link the most random things.

Search Google for a mover, and suddenly you get ads on Instagram for movers. Click on one obscure post, and suddenly there's an influx of similar-ish posts. It's not a coincidence. It's really, really shady and voyeuristic marketing. They know what you're looking for.

Well, it happened to me this week.

I'll tell you the facts, and then I'll tell you what I think happened.

Today.

Reddit.

Recommended.

A post.

From the

"Professional Cuddlers" subreddit.

You read that right.

And did I click?

My God, of course! It's like Jerry Springer—you have to look.

But here's how I think we got to this point.

First, I've been following the Rover subreddit for intel. You have posts from both sitters and customers, and they're freely sharing their rates, how they care for animals, expectations, pet peeves (pun intended), and so on. We needed a pet sitter. What a great way to research what I'd need to know—straight from the source, the boots on the ground, not the polished and marketable corporate branding.

Then I recently clicked on a ranty post about someone who had just found out their best friend was dating an AI companion.

Because I'm a nosy bitch.

And then the algorithm said,

"Oh, hiring people to do things in your home via an app? And..." checks notes "...AI companions? Yeah. Give her the professional cuddlers. Hire someone to hold you tonight."

And it's not that the arithmetic daddy-god energy matching up what to give me next was wrong, per se.

Because I am a little into the weird, and of course I wanted to read about what the heck this was and who was hiring them.

But I'm not someone who would hire a professional cuddler.

Then again...

I feel like I'd probably be a professional cuddler's favorite client.

I'm a good hugger. I don't fidget. I'd be so respectful of boundaries and considerate. Ask if this is something they do full-time or if they're also in grad school. Have really nice snacks. Always tip. And we'd have a lovely conversation.

Then again...

Isn't that probably exactly what all the clients think?

Maybe that's the algorithm's real talent.

Not knowing what I want.

Just knowing which strange little corners of me are curious enough to click.