I think one thing I am learning is how good being alone is for me. I find that now, I crave it. I watch the same episodes of TV over and over again. The ones that are so comfortable and familiar yet don’t numb me after watching. I cook for hours at a time, or perhaps what I do is just stand in my kitchen drinking coffee or wine with vegetables around me.

I go to bed earlier.

I think I have finally stopped wishing this was different.

Instead, I just do it.

I think (and hope) there is a point in every adult life that says, you will find the routine that brings you the greatest comfort and you will start doing it. Because you need it. Because you started another new job and because you were sick for awhile and because you have transitioned a bunch and because you are tired. You are also older than you used to be and because the rest matters. And because, it is what it is.

While standing in my Lima kitchen, I am reminded of standing in the homes where I grew up, of my grandmother’s kitchen. The color yellow and the smell of her, comforting, in that space.

There is something about it. And why I stand there, 16 years after her death, letting her in to join me, in the kitchen.