I Can't Imagine Being Invested In Someone

I Looked At Other Couples And Wondered How They Could Be So Calm About It. They Held Hands As If They Weren't Even Holding Hands. When Steve And I Held Hands, I Had To Keep Looking Down To Marvel At It. There Was My Hand, The Same Hand I've Always Had - Oh, But Look! What Is It Holding? It's Holding Steve's Hand! Who Is Steve? My Three-dimensional Boyfriend. Each Day I Wondered What Would Happen Next. What Happens When You Stop Wanting, When You Are Happy. I Supposed I Would Go On Being Happy Forever. I Knew I Would Not Mess Things Up By Growing Bored. I Had Done That Once Before.

It Would Require Constant Vigilance To Not Replace Each Person With My Own Fictional Version Of Them.

After I Had My Son I Looked Everywhere For A Book That Might Serve As Some Kind Of Mirror. I Bought So Many Silly Books. Now I See What The Problem Was: I Wanted A Book About Time-about Mortality. I Can't Think Of A Writer Who Is At Once So Experimentally Daring And So Rigorously Uncompromising As Sarah Manguso. Ongoingness Is An Incredibly Elegant, Wise Book, And I Loved It.

I've Always Been Terrified Of Getting Used To Something That Is Actually Killing Me-a Relationship Or A Job. But In Those Cases, You Can Count On A Friend To Say Something. The Internet Is Different, Because All My Friends Are In The Same Relationship.

I Laughed And Said, Life Is Easy. What I Meant Was, Life Is Easy With You Here, And When You Leave, It Will Be Hard Again.