To define is to limit.

i'm down in the living room, just me and darcy. the baby is in his bed, asleep. the husband is in his bed, asleep. a silence hangs over the house, and i feel like i'm in a million different times at once, like every small timeline of my life intersects here. i am a high school senior sitting on my bed. the glow of the tv bright in the darkness. i am a college student on the same bed, in the same dark, with a different glowing screen, six msn messenger conversations open. i am sitting in a small apartment. the ring on my finger is new, but the silence and the darkness are old, familiar. i am a mother, and though the darkness is wearing a cloak of recess lighting, the silence is still here, welcoming. 

my life often seems like a series of endless loops, some bigger than others. there are the small loops: build a tower, clap as baby knocks it down. build a tower, clap as baby knocks it down. build a tower. there are the bigger loops, like the one that finds me hiding under my blankets with a tear-streaked face again and again and again. and there are these, the loops that you wouldn't recognize as loops unless you look at the whole picture, see the whole timeline stretched out before you. and as loops go, if i am to constantly find myself with only the darkness and silence of night as my companions, well, it's not a bad loop to be stuck in. 

i have not blogged in nearly two months. most days it seems like there is nothing to write that is worth the time i could be doing something else. most days i am not sitting in my living room alone at night. most days the older versions of myself are not at the surface, not flowing through my veins, not breathing through my lungs. 

i used to think that, to come back to this blog, even sure that no one still read it, i needed something big. i should only come back if i have something worth saying. tonight, i should blog because i never stopped blogging. tonight, i should read harry potter fanfiction. tonight, i should talk to friends. tonight, i should fall in love or make someone fall in love with me. tonight, i should watch reruns of 90s television. tonight, i should wash bottles. tonight, i should do the same thing i did last night and the same thing that i'll do tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.