Everything in this place is you.
We stand in your oh so familiar hallway- a place of frequent meetings and partings. We can’t go further than this stretch of building. The main glass door is at just wrong angle to see your front door with its touch of eucalyptus. Stairs I have never stepped on lead up and away and the strange patch of dark corridor leads into the something and nothing space in front of numbers 84 and 85.
We laugh because there is nothing else to do in this most ridiculous of moments. We pass our presents carefully to each other, the closest we can be, space between our hands at once minute and cavernous. “Happy Christmas” we chuckle to each other on the 11th of February. Not quite your birthday when I thought I would finally give you the gift I am quietly proud of though it will be strange not to see it every day and think of giving it to you.
We sit down on the floor. The thin carpet beneath us, it’s the type you would find in all shared spaces, an official institutional air clings to it; it always does with things chosen for purpose instead of aesthetics. Those blinds you find in doctors waiting rooms- they have it too. You’re in your slippers, two jumpers and a pink mask. I’ve got fur lined boots, a grey mask and I keep my coat and hat on but I remove my gloves. Hands warmed by my Costa coffee that I’m realising I can’t drink without moving my mask. I want to drink my coffee but we want to obey the rules.
We start off cross legged but the space is cold and I am the first to give in to the ache in my legs and my back seeks the wall. I am seeing your eyes in the flesh for the first time in months, the screens of our teams’ meetings don’t do them justice. Half our faces are covered but we can see the smiles and hear the excitement at speaking to another person in real life. A person who is always so close and has been made to be so far all at once.
We don’t have makeup on. We still do our skincare though. I know this about us, keeping our careful routines where we sink products into our skin. It’s called self-care now. We (everyone) cling to self-care, more for what it represents than anything else. Self-care implies we are in control. That we have a power over ourselves that simple acts becoming ritual can save us from the hectic ideas that spin around us. Well at least that’s what occurs to me when the coolness of my moisturiser trickles into my cheeks each morning and evening. I could fall into the black of the circle I fill in on my habit tracker next to the things I am telling myself are pinning my life together. Steps, skincare, writing…
We’ve been somewhat like this with each other before though. Both dressed honestly for our days sometimes as close to pyjamas as we could manage. But we’ve also been our strongest selves, the clothes mimicking the role we see ourselves in, the person we were that day.
We could reminisce about the sushi dates, the hugs of surprise to be in the same office building. We don’t. We have a lot to cover, a lot to say. I have said things to you before I have even said them aloud to myself. I wonder if you think about that time, over coffee and toast in a fleeting moment of normalcy not even that long ago. But we don’t have time. We will have time again but we don’t have time right now.
We say goodbye without hugging. The hardest part, the distance most intensely felt. To be so close to you again.
I just miss you.
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