Chapter 2 | Entry Twelve

Entry Twelve

"Opening again after closing feels like stepping into cold water, you know it won't kill you, but your body remembers the shock."

I went to the grocery store this afternoon.

Not because I needed much, just the usual. Almond milk, the good espresso beans, fresh ginger for my morning tea. Kale because I actually love it, not because I'm pretending. Avocados that I'd press gently to find the perfect ripeness. The kind of shopping I do when I'm taking care of myself, not just surviving.

I got dressed. I put myself back into the world instead of ordering everything to my door like I'd been doing for weeks.

The fluorescent lights were too bright, the way they always are. The cart had a wobbly wheel. I was in the produce section, weighing a bunch of apples in my hands, when the song changed.

Something old. Something with a beat that found its way into my hips before my mind could stop it.

And I started moving.

Not performing. Not trying to be seen. Just swaying there between the leafy greens and the citrus, letting my body remember what it feels like to be alive in the smallest, most ordinary moments.

That's when I felt it.

That shift in the air when someone notices you.

I looked up, and a handsome man was there. Blue eyes, the kind of smile that's easy and warm without trying too hard. Watching me dance with my grocery cart like it was the most natural thing in the world.

"I love that you just did that," he said.

I laughed, not embarrassed. "The song was right."

"It was." He grinned. "You looked happy."

And there it was, that flicker of possibility. That question hanging in the mundane space between the chard and the music still playing overhead.

We kept talking. About nothing, really. About how grocery stores always play the best terrible songs. About whether anyone actually likes kale or if we're all just pretending. (I told him I genuinely love it. He looked skeptical but charmed.)

He was easy to talk to. Present. The kind of man who listens like he's actually interested, not just waiting for his turn to speak.

And I felt myself start to lean in.

Not physically. But energetically. That old pattern of opening too fast, giving too much, hoping that if I show him how alive I am, how easy it could be, he'll choose to stay.

But then I remembered.

I remembered the loneliness of being touched but not seen. The exhaustion of performing aliveness instead of just living it. The way I've spent so much time trying to be enough for men who were never going to meet me where I actually am.

So I stayed present. I laughed when something was funny. I let the conversation breathe. I didn't try to dazzle him or make myself smaller.

When we ended up in the same checkout line, he asked for my number.

And I gave it to him.

Not because I think he's the one. Not because I'm desperate for it to mean something.

But because I'm still willing to try.

Still willing to believe that maybe, this time, I can stay whole and still let someone in.

Maybe.

—Still trying