and it’s a weird kind of freedom, this not needing to immediately fill every little empty space, even the literal ones in the kitchen. used to be a panic, that slight hollow feeling when there was nothing concrete to grab onto, a twitch in my spine almost, like my body bracing for the inevitable spiral of 'not enough' or 'you should be doing more' or 'why aren't you on top of this'— all that old noise that used to rise up and swamp everything, make my tongue go all cotton-dry with the sheer effort of trying to push it back down or out. now it’s just… empty. a gap. and the silence there is the biggest difference, just the actual absence of that crushing self-judgment, the whole world doesn't rush in to yell at me for a forgotten grocery run anymore, and that space, that actual SPACE is the one thing I was always really searching for anyway, even when I thought it was some big destination.