Every day I live in less of my house. One day the piano’s gone; later the wall art starts to disappear; little-used kitchen utensils are stowed or thrown out. (What the fuck we owned a cherry pitter?) Each day a bit more of my life is stacked in banker boxes with cryptic messages like “LR BOOKS #3” written in enduringly stinky Sharpie ink.
There’s not a single thing that comes into view that I don’t think “do I really need you?” Every object I settle my gaze upon quakes at the prospect of the landfill.
In the current context almost everything I own seems absurd. I am triaging decades of my life. According to these artifacts and trinkets, my life was also absurd. I know the artifacts don’t tell the whole story. I know my life [so far] wasn’t absurd. For the most part. But still.
I don’t live in Buffalo any more. A viral neutron bomb has left all of the physical structure of Buffalo intact. But what made Buffalo Buffalo: my friends, our shared lives, the unhealthy food we ate together, the sweet fragile beauty of connection that we had — that’s all gone. I’m one intensely socially-distant motherfucker right now. I love you, but I don’t trust that you don’t have the plague, so I’m not hanging: because if I get this plague, an already impossibly complicated life will just fucking go off the rails.
I’m not sad at all. (For the most part.) I’m ready to move on. This was not how I thought I’d end my days in this sweet, lovely town, amongst you sweet, lovely people. You are, sincerely, the best part of my life.
And yet: here I go!
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