The Instant

When you’ve had sadness, it will cast a shadow long after things are better.

And then, in my hand, I hold my phone containing the whole internet: all of my friends, the entirety of Wikipedia. The internet is always offering an elsewhere. I spend my days being distracted, attention pulled from this to that. I’m doing well to get anything done at all. Which world do I choose to enter?

I needed to get away. I wanted an adult life, restaurants, sexiness, conversation and art. I wanted to meet new people who didn’t know old things about me.

Things didn't go according to plan. I never found a raccoon. But I came to realise I was never entitled to a certain life, a certain person. I made it all up in my head. And what I have to do now is make up a new story, be brave and strong enough to imagine a different path.

I've found lately that when people message me, perhaps suggesting meeting up, or in a potentially romantic situation, they drop personal pronouns - it's all 'Be in touch?' or 'Wanna meet up?' rather than 'Would you like to meet up with me?' - never implicating themselves, or making firm plans, always suggesting they have somewhere else or better to be. We like to give the impression that things don't mean that much and we're not taking risks.

Asking for a friendship is hard. Hearts and futures can turn on a single afternoon or an accepted invitation - but more often lead to nothing but themselves.

Hearts and futures can turn on a single afternoon or an accepted invitation - but more often lead to nothing but themselves.

An ultrafast event is something that’s over almost as soon as it’s started. Its impression lasts far longer than the event itself. We can never catch a moment in time. We have to surrender to the instant, open to experience it as it happens with no expectation of permanence.

To paint a picture of a dream life can be more appealing than an average reality and it is exciting and flattering to be in this bubble. But you can’t live in a painting. Real life takes sustained effort, slow progress and compromise.

We can never catch a moment in time. We have to surrender to the instant, open to experience it as it happens with no expectation of permanence.

Most people know how it feels to be online with an aching heart.

The teacher tells us we hold guilt an self-criticism just below our navels and I look down quizzically. I practise headstands. I'm learning to fall well.

I wanted to come back to a city because I'm not done yet. I want another throw of the dice.

There is always a sense of arriving in Berlin just a little too late.

We're all waiting for the email that will change our lives.

In the simplest terms, the internet is made from pulses of light.