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People are wonderfully complicated.
Recipes aren’t.
By the time dinner is finished, the apartment smells like garlic, rosemary, and fresh bread warming in the oven.
I plate everything as if I am serving this dish at a five-star restaurant.
Ivy has teased me more than once for refusing to eat standing over the sink. Or with a paper plate.
If I spent all this time making dinner, I’m going to sit down and enjoy it.
I carry my plate to the little table beside the window, strike a match, and light the candle that lives in the center year-round.
Harper is always giving them to me, from a small business in downtown Ashen Mills called Lawson Light Candle Co.
Outside, the last bit of sunlight disappears behind the neighboring apartment buildings.
The quiet, cozy apartment is exactly the way I like it.
Most people assume therapists spend all day talking.
We don’t.
We spend all day listening.
There’s a difference.
Listening well requires more energy than people realize. Every client who walks into my office brings something with them. Grief. Anxiety. Marriage problems. Shame. Hope. Fear. Some leave feeling lighter.
Some don’t.
Either way, I carry little pieces of those conversations home with me.
The stillness helps me put them back down again.
I finish eating, then carry my dishes to the sink and roll up the sleeves of my sweatshirt.
The dishwasher beneath the counter has been used exactly twice.
Once to make sure it worked after I moved in.
The second time because Ivy insisted I was, and I quote, “being absolutely ridiculous.”
She wasn’t wrong.
I just like washing dishes.
I like the warm water.
I like waking up to an empty sink.
I like knowing everything has already been taken care of before tomorrow begins.
Twenty minutes later, the counters are wiped down, tomorrow’s lunch is packed, and the coffee maker is programmed to start brewing at six-fifteen.
Morning Olivia always appreciates evening Olivia.
I disappear into the bathroom for a hot shower before changing into my favorite oversized sweatshirt, plaid pajama pants, and the fuzzy socks Harper bought me for Christmas three years ago.
