At Every Wedding Someone Stays Home.

I Wasn't Sure What I Expected Her To Do Or Say To This. It Was All New To Me From That Second On. But Clearly, She'd Been There Before. It Was Obvious In The Easy Way She Shrugged Off Her Bag, Letting It Fall With A Thump Onto The Sand, Before Sitting Down Beside Me. She Didn't Pull Me Close For A Big Bonding Hug Or Offer Up Some Saccharine Words Of Comfort, Both Of Which Would Have Sent Me Running For Sure. Instead She Gave Me Nothing But Her Company, Realizing Even Before I Did This That This, In Fact, Was Just What I Needed.

Because Anyone That Can Make You Feel That Bad About Yourself Is Toxic.

In The End, Though, Maybe It's Not How You Reach A Place That Matters. Just That You Get There At All.

From Up Above, In A Plane Passing Over, You’d Just See One Little Light In All This Dark, With No Idea Of The Lives That Were Being Lived Within It, And In The House Beside, And Beside That One. So Much Happening In The World, Night And Day, Hour By Hour. It Was No Wonder We Were Meant To Sleep, If Only To Check Out Of It For A Little While.

Wake Up, Caitlin, Mr. Lensing Had Said. But What He Didn't Under­stand Was That This Dreamland Was Preferable, Walking Through This Life Half-sleeping, Everything At Arm's Length Or Farther Away.