The air is metallic with the smell of snow. Something is changing in me, and I'm not sure what it is. I feel like a river, who is suddenly being fed by a new stream.

Work surges. I can feel every minute change in mood. I see that fractionally raised eyebrow. I see that avoiding eye contact. I hear that turn of phrase.

I feel it all. I smile, calmly, softly. Just as I should. But every shift in mood feels like a flick on the cheek, and my cheeks are getting sore.

In a fit of pique, I delete my last dating profile. I don't even tell the guy who asked me out for drinks. I just slip under and disappear.

I eat too much. I gorge. I ignore the healthy eating habits I had spent the last three months carefully building.

My pants get tight.

I don't do my laundry for weeks.

My bedroom floor disappears in a froth of flotsam and jetsam. I can't bring myself to tidy up my tax paperwork, my dirty socks, my endless stacks of blank stationary.

I should write some letters.

Packages sit stacked, unsent, weeks after birthdays have come. I get a few letters.

Where are you?

Looping handwriting, antique onion-skin stationary, dug out of the back of some closet.

Write me back soon.

I must, I must. I find my address book, my stamps. I manage to get one letter out, a post card. A scratch, a drop.

A late night, my strength propped up with cheap gin, I log on to the kink site.

Last activity, 1 year ago.

Hmpf.

Fiddling, scrolling aimlessly through posts, groups, profiles.

But here...

The profile is short, concise. Enough to know we're likely to be sexually compatible. Enough to know we have common interests. There is no face pic, not unusual for this site. I don't have my face up either.

Gin, sharp and metallic in my mouth.

I'll bite, I write. You say you're creative. What do you do?

He writes back. He likes my profile. The fire, the sass, the fury. He tells me about his film work.

I like his punctuation.

He tells me enough about himself that I find a picture of his face online.

Nerdy, a bit weird, but not unattractive.

I wonder if he'd like mine.

I lay awake at night, thinking about the paths suddenly spreading out before me, like a river meeting the ocean.

I gather up all my dirty socks, wash them, pair them, and put them all away in one surge.

It's a silly thing, to think of this. So few words exchanged. But I can't help fiddling with all the maybes.

So many maybes.

.

Rosie.

Before&After