learning

i guess you learn about yourself. you can't live with animals, you never have, you'll mess up. those first couple weeks filled with agonizing anxiety, nervous every time you didn't see the cat for awhile, nervous she got out, somehow, some way, even though you've been so careful. nervous the dog won't like you. you spent moments on the couch fighting off panic attacks and nightmarish scenarios when your brain went into overdrive and convinced yourself the cat had ran out and been run over or some other horrible fate. you can't live with someone in such close proximity, you need your room, your space, the last time you did this was college and you spent entire days hiding in the library, self-harming when a moment's peace was available in the dorm room, spending every living second wanting to die. but then at night when you're close and can hear her breath and reach out and touch her you're glad that someone is here to be a source of comfort after long days. you might as well not live where they have a pool because even though you love swimming you're too nervous to go. then you do and it's ok and you plan to go again and nobody cares what you do or don't wear or at least they don't vocalize it. there are lots of things you still can't do; you can't write, and you can't seem to get a degree, but the list gets a bit shorter every day and maybe before you know it the 'can't do' parts will be replaced with a sense of accomplishment that for almost 3 decades you have never once had.