Habits run without permission, which is exactly why they feel like rest when a routine gets heavy.
Unaccompanied
Unasked
Who You Were Before
It comes up early, usually within the first few sessions, phrased almost the same way every time. I just want to get back to who I was before. Before the affair, before the diagnosis, before the year that took the whole thing apart. The person being described is always described generously, and always by someone with a reason to describe her that way. She's also the one who walked into this without seeing it coming.
Where Were You: Twenty-five years, from a firing range in Ohio
The drive from Columbus to Dayton was eerily still. No traffic. No highway patrol running speed. My route took me past Wright-Patterson, where the quiet broke open for the low growl of a caravan of military humvees moving down the interstate, and then closed back over the road behind them.
Twenty-five years later, there's a generation of first responders who have no morning to describe. They carry the day anyway.
