Sometimes it comes over me, like a fever.

This inability to feel settled, this inability to feel at rest…a sense like I'm waiting for something to happen, something to suddenly shift. It's hard to know whether it's impending glory or impending disaster, but there's a sense of something about to change.

The only disappointment is if nothing happens at all. Like the universe setting you up, and then—indifferent to your yearnings for change—letting you down.

Sometimes it's a sense that everyone is away and busy and not making an effort to reach out or see you, which it isn't always. Putting out your energies and not feeling them returned, which never makes you feel good.

Sometimes it's wanting that one special person to reach out, which at times feels foolhardy to even contemplate because in decades this person has never done such a thing.

Aside from the fact that they're not exactly talking to you now, and the incongruity between how happy they were when you reappeared and how cold they seemed when they couldn't make the barest effort to meet you halfway made you question if they'd meant any kind thing they'd ever said to you.