Spring is almost here. A season of blossom. So many changes around me, and yet, everything feels the same. I drag myself out of bed each morning. I Facetime D while I tug the corners of the sheet and straighten the blanket over the bed as if I didn’t just lie in it for hours. It occurs to me he’s seen me do this many times—crouched over, making a bed, changing my sheets, fluffing my pillow. A long-distance relationship and the glare of the camera leave one of us a spectator, and the other, the performer. I ask him if he gets tired of watching me on a screen doing the same thing every morning. Before he answers, I tell him I’m changing before his eyes, and he doesn’t even know it. We laugh about it, about how we’re aging so silently, and quickly, too. I admit that I am only reminded that I’m growing when I see a child who I thought would still be a baby but isn’t a baby anymore. They are crawling. Sometimes they are walking and talking. My niece knows who I am. She says my name in full. She’s not a baby, although I remember my cousin in the hospital, the stories of her long labor. I remember the first pictures of Peniel all swaddled up. A peanut. So tiny the whole thing was unbelievable. How I felt I was missing all the important moments in my family. And now here she is—full of language and humor. Singing to me. Sticking her tongue out at me. I am growing, I tell D, I am growing and changing, and I still feel like such a child.

One thing I cannot be at the interview is childish. I want the job so badly. I grab a nineteen-dollar blouse off the rack at Marshalls. Alina pays for me and calls it a lucky blouse.  It is pink and floral and feminine. It is something my mother would approve of. On the day, I dab some foundation here and there. I look at myself in the mirror. I smile. I wave. The goal is to look nice and put together. To look like I know what I’m doing. I rehearse my answers. I walk around my apartment and practice practice practice. Tell us about yourself. What attracted you to this position? What would you do differently? How would you do it?  I wonder how many times I’ll have to do this in my life. To prove myself. A lot. I know that I am capable. I can do the job and do it well. I also know that I will get better if someone would let me in. But I can’t say that. I can’t beg for this. If I am too desperate, too eager, too emotional, maybe that’ll scare people off. I must be firm and poised and sure. But when I show up for the interview, I can’t slow down the pounding of my heart. I can hear it in my ears. I wonder if everyone else can hear it too. I admit to the committee that I’m nervous and in the first minute, I choke on my words because everything in my body is screaming. I don’t know what to do with all the nerves, and sometimes there’s not enough time to think about what to do when fear is clawing at you. You just work through it. And I did. I realize now that there’ll be more of this. More of the shaking hands and breaking voice and a pounding heart, but there’ll also be more of me wanting something in life, caring enough about wanting to do it well, and being brave in showing up for myself, even if with fear. I can make peace with that.

What I can’t make peace with is the idea of two people becoming one. I suppose I can because I am very close to it, but I don’t know what to do with myself. How does one prepare for such a union? You spend so much of your life living quietly, tucked away in an apartment by yourself with your rituals and tendencies and way of doing things and then there’s a disruption. Perhaps that’s too harsh of a word, but wouldn’t anyone admit there is a tiny bit of violation and disturbance happening? Life as I know it will be drastically changed, for better or for worse. Here’s a man with his own desires and tendencies and way of doing things. There is his love and its abundance, which I so cherish. But of course, there are all the other things too. If nothing at all, this new season will teach and transform me. Whether or not I am ready, I will learn what it means to think of myself less, to compromise, to give up one way for another, to make decisions together, to live together, to gain a new perspective on many, many things. Together: So as to be attached; in a joined state; so as to leave no opening. No opening. No split between you and me. For the rest of our lives. The self does not utterly dissipate, I hope not. I crave a kind of boundary, a thin line woven through the newness that is our lives, our home, our future. It is how I have lived my whole life, after all—in fearful possession and need of safety. Something to call mine, something to keep, something to protect. I do want to be able to think my thoughts and use my voice and exist in a body that isn’t taken over, oppressed, or so detached from myself. So much thrives in love. And we have a lot of it. I suppose I am most afraid to be seen. There’s no more hiding with D. He will see me for what I am, and I him. While the world gets fragments of who we are, we bring to each other our full, uncompromised selves. Yikes. What does one do with that kind of knowing? All the silly and grave imperfections hemmed deeply within us. How much tension and how often? How many grievances and hopefully, reconciliations? How much wounding, healing, how much time? So much of ourselves to give to each other. So much of ourselves to lose. That too, is its own kind of grief, no? I have many questions, but I am not without hope.

May we always be reaching for each other, D. Every day we’re in the dance of love, sometimes stumbling over each other, sometimes a head resting gently on the chest, other times lost in the rhythm, tired and numb, and on some days, wishing everything would stop spinning. But the music stays on, and we know, deep down we know, that we wouldn’t want to do this with anyone else.