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Got back from Salem last night. I had a very good time there. I did not expect to feel this way, but it made me feel a lot better about myself, at least for a bit until I woke up today. It made me realise just how isolated I’ve been, both from a greater sense of community, and my own feelings about my work. There was a time, before I learned shame, when things genuinely excited me and the work felt not just purposeful but inspired, and inspiring. I think when I first met Ana, it was what drew her to me, and me to her: a tide of unfettered will and vivacity, an intense curiosity about things and a sense of determined grace. I was so happy back then. For the first time in my adult life, I felt like I had people around me who understood me, who saw the value in my work, in my values. There was neither pride nor pretence yet. The work mattered to me, and was dignified. I felt real in a very real and unabashed way.

This place that has kept me alive for so long is also killing me in a different way. Slower, subtler, more certain. I’m sure of this now. People have been telling me this for years but I’ve always been too scared, too ashamed of my own inaction and complacency to admit that they’re right. I am decaying in this place, and most days, it no longer feels much like a home but a cell. If Tawanda wasn’t around, I don’t know what I would do. I have finally begun to feel the nascence of growth, I think. The emergent possibility that I not only must but can outgrow this if I want to have any chance of living a life worth living. I miss Ana terribly. I have no choice but to relearn everything.