I want to cancel.

I’m an hour and forty-five minutes away from when I am supposed to be somewhere and I want to cancel.

I’m an hour and forty-five minutes away from when I am supposed to be somewhere to meet someone and instead I am crying in the bathroom and now all of my makeup is running and I want to cancel.

I’m an hour and forty-five minutes away from my 1st first date since age 19 and I am wearing nice clothes and crying in the bathroom and my makeup is running and I don’t want to be doing this, why should I have to be doing this, and I want to cancel.

An hour and forty-five minutes away and the moon is out and there is nothing wrong with the weather and nothing wrong with the man and still I am crying because I wanted to be done with this years ago, thought that I was done with this years ago, all this trying to get someone to see me as I am and have that be enough, and I want to call someone. I want to call someone and have them talk me into it, to have them tell me it will be okay, but I can’t take another night of not really being heard, have learned too much in the last two years, in even the last eight months about the ways you can open yourself to someone and still watch them walk away, and so an hour and forty-five minutes away from my 1st first date in 18 years I hang up the phone without dialing, stare in the mirror at my red, red eyes, wash my face.

I’m an hour and forty-five minutes away from when I am supposed to be somewhere and my husband is still in film canisters in the drawer with my single, unmatched socks, where he has been since the last parts of him were handed to me nearly two years ago.

And I don’t want to do this because I should never have had to do this with anyone but him. I needed him to stay. I just need someone to stay.

I should cancel.