It is too early for  a  heart to heart, but we have one
anyway. My  cousin  has  brought  me a couple of things
from our  family's  vacation  house  up north, and as I
help her  carry  her  half  dozen bags to the metro, we
linger under timetable screens, catching up.

The last time I spoke  to her was almost two years ago,
randomly bumping into her at  a bus stop in my old home
town while I was housesitting. Later, as I dwell on the
lingering feeling of  her  being  different from what I
remember, it   occurs  to  me  that I have never really
known her as an adult.  We  spent a fair amount of time
together in  our  late  teens  (I'm also a little older
than her, though even  then  I  don't think 18, or even
early 20's, is  real  adulthood)  but  after that, only
talked briefly. After  each other's concerts, at family
funerals, nowhere conducive for really connecting.

She tells   me  she  had  wondered about me, considered
reaching out  but  thought  I  wouldn't care. The exact
same reason I never got in touch with her. I can't help
but say the worst thing as she tells me that I could've
called her anytime, that  I  never had to be alone with
my mother -- that I  wish  I'd known -- but I just care
about having her in my life from now on. I need to make
sure she doesn't feel guilty over it. In reality I most
likely would have  just  isolated myself even with that
knowledge, as is my default.

We have plans to visit, once I get done with the urgent
literary drudgery.   Deciding  what  I'll bake to bring
with me   is  a  nice  little  thought to return to, in
between moments that drag on.

There has  to  be  something  to the sentiment that God
will not   put  blessings  in  the hands of people with
their arms  full  of  old  crap. No one can convince me
it's a coincidence that just a few days after I finally
let out my burden  into  the  world, I get something in
its place,  the  thing  I  wished for. Family. Not just
her, but also my aunt  and  uncle as well -- the latter
of whom I have been putting off calling for some advice
for months, out of feeling like my mother burned all my
bridges alongside her own.  Both would only be happy to
hear from me, she  assures,  and  though it is a little
naive to think  I'm  completely  untarnished, maybe the
other extreme of myself  as nothing but an extension of
my mother is just as flawed, and the truth somewhere in
the middle.   I  can  work  with  a chance to be my own
person.

I saw this thing mentioned, '100 days to offload'; from
the pound  sign  in  front  I  take it to be a Mastodon
thing, but  I'm  fairly  sure  I came across it here on
gopher (since,  you  know,  I  came across it) so maybe
it's adjacent to, or trickling down to, here as well. I
don't think I quite have the humility to participate in
a social media challenge,  but maybe I'll just be aware
of, and   benefit  from,  this  hundred-day amnesty for
gratuitous writing. Both  writing as well as sharing my
writing (my enjoyment  of  the  latter being especially
forgettable) are things I'd  like  to keep. Even if not
another   blessing  were  to  come  of  it, I have been
convinced that I am doing good to myself by it.