active recovery

sorry your advice only applies to people who are fundamentally saveable on a cosmic and cellular level

People want to have a witness in their lives. One day, you're thirty and coming home to a bed and a stove. The fridge is stocked with cold juice and last night's dinner. The bank and utilities are the only ones mindful enough to pile your mailbox. The air circulating your blankets, books, and hobby stuff is warm, but a discernible coldness lingers in the hall. The craving for a loved one is sharper, pronounced, yet unmoving. Soon, the most gracious thing another human can do to you is to become an afterthought. In that time, a crying child in a cradle next to the bed, an aging parent, or a notification like a promotion or vacation catches attention faster than hi. Nobody's in the wrong; just priorities. Couples can't even look at each other over dinner. Why bother with you? So you decide that you'll pick another whose despondency motivates and binds. In doing so, one becomes two. Two toothbrushes. Two bunny slippers. The fridge now holds lemonade, face masks, and peach ice cream. People will call you desperate or dishonest for taking someone to have someone. But did it matter when with feelings or not, they own the same pronoun, mine? The risk wasn't one-sidedness; it was despair and age. It's lovely forevermore to have someone hold the camera, wide-eyed, cooing at you while you blow out your birthday candles. Navigator and driver together on road trips. You'll know one day, through the rhythm of daily life, that they remember buying your favorite cookie for your lunchbox. The bedsprings sagged under their weight. You have someone to run to. To cry. Be elated with. An excuse to finally go home. They feel the same. You're still giving someone the fullness of your heart. Your love given to them whole, shoveled with a spoon.