Part of my bitterness was a sense that if I could just do the right thing and choose the right job, or person, or work, I would finally move beyond my loneliness, my need. I was so afraid, so afraid. Of isolation, of a life obscured by suffering and hidden from those who might love or help me. My breath, for months, had been the quickened inhalation of existential panic as I gazed upon my frailty and knew how it curbed and limited my future. I did not reckon upon any strength but my own, and I knew it would fail me.
