I send my dad a photograph of me at a botanical garden. It's the first time I have stepped out of the house in weeks - the weather has been cold and wet, and with it drenching my will to move. Dad replies back with a paragraph warning me about bugs, insect bites, and diseases. He tells me not to go too close to anything that's unfamiliar. I can't help the sigh I let out. I want to tell him - everything around me within a 100-miles is unfamiliar, dad. I'd rather be out meeting the wind halfway through my walks rather than rotting away at my desk. I could tell you so many things I'm afraid of before I say bugs.

It's always quiet in this town by the sea, and I have one less reason to step out of the house each day. After years of playing pretend at family gatherings, school, and work - trying to reason and argue, trying to adjust, this quiet is now substantial. This quiet - its not a vacuum, not yet. The silence keeps me sane in the kitchen, and at night tells me it's time to rest. I recognise my comfort in solitude and also my social anxiety like it is a bundle deal. I can’t just have one, must commit to both. When does all of this self-realisation turn into a becoming? Who am I? How do I exist? When do I become myself?

I can't complain about my space now - it's like all my tearful wishes at the night sky for many years were finally heard and was paid in full at once. “You matter, you deserve space - occupy it.” The distance scares me every day. The rivers have rolled, folded, and carried me so far out across oceans. Now there are rooms I can’t fill up, a kitchen table I don’t make use of, barren empty walls, and not enough trinkets that I can collect to showcase. And there is always leftovers - enough to feed three more people. Always.

“Have you got someone waiting on you?” I get asked at times. Sometimes, I feel their linger on a silver band I always wear on my ring finger. Its a promise ring I got made for myself last year on my birthday. I smile, nod and say that I have got enough to love back at home, yes, but that isn’t what the ring is for. Its more personal, I tell them. But who is waiting on me, really? Time doesn’t wait for no one - how am I any different? Its been almost a year since I missed all the golden sunsets and every flower that my parents grew in our rooftop. They didn’t wait. I had no expectations of it too.