They sit on a park bench overlooking the Painted Ladies, unsure about their place in the world. She knows where they are, she doesn’t know what they’re doing there. Tiny drops of water grace their shoulders as they let the almost silence settle between and around them. Almost silent – not completely so. There’s the sound of the rain and the cars, to start with. There’s also the light chatter of the last few people who haven’t gone home yet. Or some who’ve stepped out again. Almost silent – not completely so. That’s how it mostly feels in her head as well. It’s almost midnight, she never really steps out of the house this late unless it’s to visit people in their homes or to come back from such visits. It’s been ages since she’s been out out this late. She hadn’t realized San Francisco on Sunday nights is almost ghost town.
The night’s precious to her, it always has been.
She wishes she’d feel safe, she could enjoy it so much more.
She wonders what she’s doing with life, giving her time to strangers, putting herself in strange, new (sometimes terrifying) situations, hoping to feel something. She’s trying to figure out what she wants from life, though she knows she may never really end up figuring it out. She’s recently started taking medication for anxiety and depression and she can’t wait for it to take effect, there’s a huge part of her that can’t wait to feel normal, in some ways.
“How do you not know what you like?”, he asks, sending her into a spiral of self-doubt again. How does she not know what she’s into? Is it really that easy for most people?
She knows she doesn’t like the cold and the rain and feeling unsafe. She always knows what she doesn’t like, she’s not as articulate with the rest. She doesn’t feel fully safe here in this city but she doesn’t want to go home, either. She’s not sure what’s holding her here. It’s not the promise of riches, or career prospects.. it’s something else. There’s this idea of accessibility that she’s unable to let go of. She’s been interacting with cool people online and a lot of them aren’t based out of her home country. A lot of them are based out of the country she’s currently living in – America, the land of opportunity. It was never really her dream, but now that she’s lived her for a while, she’s found dreamlike things about it.
He doesn’t offer a lot of information about himself unless she asks, so there’s always a lull in the conversation as she contemplates follow-ups. He never really denies when she does ask though, and that keeps it going for them.
She’s changed her mind about wanting to make money out of writing, she saw some numbers and was disillusioned, at least for the time-being. She knows she doesn’t love her day job but she’s trying to make it work, until some of the other pieces fall into place, even if they do so for a little while. She’s only 25, she doesn’t know why she’s so worried. She doesn’t even know if she wants a conventional life – the house, the family, the kids. She knows it’s just natural selection trying to do its job, making her believe she’s short on time. It’s an everyday struggle, one she can’t seem to find her way out of.
She’s always on the edge lately, except for when she’s sleeping or eating. She’s started holding a lot of the anxiety in her body, since she’s become afraid of holding it in her brain. There was a time when staying home felt consistently safe to her, that’s not the case anymore.
It’s raining heavier now, they decide to head back. They walk over the mulch and the mud, she complains about her shoes. He doesn’t care as much.
The night’s precious to him, it always has been.
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