Page 105 of The Warmth of Our Closest Star

I wasn’t as unnerved as I’d once been, thinking about the mundane, easy tasks I planned to complete during my weekend. Finding that the sun had come out, and there was no storm on the horizon, didn’t bother me. In fact, I was looking forward to lunch, dinner, dessert, and some silly movie while I ate a snack and lay on my sofa in my pajamas. Even on a Saturday night. It was a small life, but it was mine. Every decision was mine.

At what point in my life had I relied on trauma to feel alive?

I thought that over as I picked up my pen, set down my coffee mug, and began to write again. Though it would be impossible to pinpoint such a thing, it was obvious that at some point in my past, I had needed trauma every day to feel as though I was alive. It had become as though life didn’t feel real if I wasn’t constantly struggling against or for something. Alex had told me that I had missed the storm so I created a hurricane. He had been right. As he always was.

Well, almost always.

As a young teen, I had experienced the death of one of the most important people in my life. My grandmother. Then I lost my father. My sister. My mother. And, finally, my brother. All within the first two decades of my life. The storms were my only constant—the trauma and grief. They were the only things on which I could rely.

How does one not become accustomed—even fond—of it?

Trauma demands that a person sink or swim. There is no other option. If you are forced to swim for long enough, if you ever stop paddling, kicking your legs, and flailing your arms, it feels as though you are sinking.

During the first few years in America, I’d felt as though I was sinking.

It wasn’t my fault, but it was my responsibility. It had been up to me to seek out help in dealing with what I was going through. Instead, I created another storm. Some of the damage done by that storm was sleeping on my sofa. The sofa I’d bought with my own money from an actual store that was one of the building blocks of my small life.

It is my belief that if you ask anyone when they are young—a teenager, maybe—what they want to do with their life, you will get big answers. They want fame, fortune, adventure, fast cars, exotic foods, and for everyone to envy the life they lead. I had never been like that. Trauma had made me suspicious of a small life. Made me afraid of peace. Of simple things.

I’d never feared leading a small life. A modest home. A sofa. A husband. Lazy weekend dinners followed by walks to the bakery. I didn’t need my name in flashing lights or more money than I could possibly spend in my lifetime. I wanted happiness. Peace. Quiet. Love.

If a part of my life ended up being bigger than I had imagined, that would be fine. But it was unneeded for me to feel fulfilled.

I hated myself for letting trauma turn me from the things—the small life—that would have made me the happiest. I hated myself for fearing happiness when it was what I desperately wanted more than anything else in the world.

“You work at home now?” Peter’s voice startled me.

Spinning in my chair, I found him standing in my bedroom doorway. His hair was sticking up in a million different directions, his clothes were rumpled, and though he had slept well, he didn’t look well-rested. I couldn’t help but grin at his appearance.

“Hard night?” I asked, reaching for my coffee mug.

He chuckled and reached up to scratch his head. Finding his hair sticking up, he began to pat it down, finally giving up when it was obvious it had a mind of its own after a night on the sofa.

“You could say that,” he said, finally.

“There’s a pot of coffee,” I said. “I made it fresh.”

“I could use a cup.”

“Help yourself. The mugs are in the cabinet next to the refrigerator.”

“Okay,” he said, then stared at me.

I simply returned his gaze and sipped my coffee.

“You work at home now?” he asked again.

“Oh. Yes.”

“You work on Saturdays?”

“No,” I said. “I was just writing. I’ve…I’ve been writing. To understand the things in my head.”

The smallest of smiles played at the corner of his mouth. “Like when you were a kid.”

Peter never failed to amaze me with how he could remember the smallest details of my life that I had maybe mentioned to him once in a casual conversation.

“Yes.”