It's a bit like trying to leave the house in the morning and realizing that you've forgotten how to tie your shoes. I wake up early each morning unintentionally and try to toss and turn away the nameless insecurities marching through my head and the sleepy visions of walking alone down empty streets at night. No matter how good I feel every evening as I go to bed, every morning I have to relearn how to be single, feeling my way through the day, turning and looping different pieces of my life together in hopes that it will eventually form a tight, neat bow the way it used to.

Distractions are wonderful -- a person to talk to, a story to tell them, wallpaper to tear down, html to code, pants to mend. In the middle of these tasks I find I can reach down to my shoes without even thinking about it and tie the bow before I am aware of what I've done. It all fits together again. No one learns to tie a shoe by staring at the laces' twists and turns and analyzing the best way to hold it all together. It is a skill that we learn and repeat blindly until it becomes natural. We have all learned to tie our shoelaces and we have all learned to live, and if we let ourselves relax we can always remember how.

We could use about 40 hours of wallpaper removal.