the thoughts are gone

The thoughts are gone. It went in waves, of course, like many things - a gradual decline. You stopped writing fiction, and then you stopped writing blog posts, and then you stopped writing emails, and then you ceased to be the one thing you always wanted to be. Many a post in this blog have alluded to giving up on what one might want or desire over the course of existence. Perhaps it's for the best.

There is no conditional "perhaps" in front of the best that previously happened. Through all the tumult and stress and foot stomping and regrets and critiques, your wife stood there in her dress and smiled and you smiled and a weird calmness - about singing in front of a crowd, speaking in front of a crowd, a permanence you for years derided as silly or even stupid - washed over you. There was a rightness here, like the rightness you feel when exploring the streets of Kuala Lumpur, tropical heat and palm trees and rotten durian all assaulting you, of watching a sunset from Darwin beaches, perfect colors splashed across a clear, warm sky, of drinks at a dive bar in Vietnam, company louder - just barely - than the 6 month old billboard hits, but this time it was about a person, not a place, not a time. Or maybe it was a time, a forever stretched out into the very horizon you sat and meditated on from as many corners of the world as possible. A person forever, not setting and rising but there embedded into you like the heart she has tattooed on her wrist. The passport has been unstamped since 2016.

There is a pursuit, at times, of so many things that it is hard to figure out what they are. A pursuit of reading and writing more, a pursuit of video games, a pursuit of travel. It's easy to dwell on the nil here, but harder to spend time with a brief reward. Two classes aced, a life partner, a sense of self that might come and go but at least is no longer the transparent it once permanently was. You sit and painfully watch the clock wishing the night with her wasn't about to end, when in the past, you just wanted it to end, to fall asleep, to never wake up. Now you want it to stretch on for eternity, cuddled up on the couch, laughing all of life's anxieties away. Still there is more around the corner. The counter says two blog posts in two months, one of them not even yours. The book sits next to the bed folded on its spine still somewhere where you left off. Your friends talk about a game in ways you barely understand anymore.

So many references dangle in and out of earshot, quotes, in-jokes, a sort of language owned only by the most select people, you revel in what it means. For so long your language was global, only shrouded in niche internet references insomuch as the internet can be niche, now you have a network of one where language is your own creation, your own household. It feels weird and new and exciting. You and your wife can speak a version of English only you understand. An actual love language. It's weird to think millions more exist.

You still have no idea where any of this leads. All seemed impossible. You knew being a writer was impossible years ago. You knew moving to southeast Asia was impossible years ago. You knew being married was impossible years ago. You knew singing in front of a crowd was impossible years ago. Who knows what you'll think is impossible tomorrow? The counter for May ticks to two. In three days June will read 0. It's easy to focus on the nil.