the way the light from the phone screen catches the dust motes dancing in the air right after the message appears, that's what caught me. not the words themselves, 'hang in there,' though they registered, or the usual jolt of a distant deposit, but that faint shimmer in the settled air, the way the particles just hang suspended, unaffected by the well-meaning echo from somewhere far away. this rural Virginia home just breathes differently now. it’s a strange thing, this feeling, because it used to be that any external vibration, any little ripple, would send me spiraling, the internal clench in my gut tightening like a vice, a desperate readiness for another demand, but now it’s just... there. a momentary flicker in the vastness. and then the breath settles again, a slow, deep pull that fills all the newly found corners of this vessel i'm rediscovering, not quite shaped yet, but definitely mine. the muscle behind my ear, the one that used to pulse with the rhythm of every distant, unasked-for update, it's still there, a faint memory of an old habit, but it doesn't twitch like it used to, doesn't demand my attention anymore. sometimes i wonder if they even remember who they’re telling to 'hang in there,' the person i was, the one who truly needed that, the one who poured herself out so completely she forgot the very shape of her own container, but that thought doesn't hurt, not anymore. it just floats, like the dust in the light, part of the scenery.