There was no oat milk or lactose-free cottage cheese in the few markets i visited in Wisconsin. You probably already know why: “America’s Dairyland”. i guess lactose-intolerant people can just gtfo? Don’t worry, i’m going. But not before i find Lake Michigan, which i’ve met before but to whom i hadn’t cried until now.

i’ve gone too far east for the relevancy of my bird book. The comfort i find in identifying birds slips away as my wheels roll toward the familiar. Everything feels new somehow, and i just want to keep crying for small miracles and great beauties. i’d prefer to mourn lost lovers and ex-friends. Instead, the cool wind comes off this great lake to dry my tears falling for ever more serious issues, none of which are mine to share. If i had a lover i might whisper to them of my new distresses. These days i whisper to myself alone.

The “we” with which i am most familiar, we are growing up. There are babies now, welcomed and adored. i am quite excited to make their acquaintances. People paired off are signing paperwork about it. Everyone is following their own personal dreams. i am learning what it’s like to have seeds of hope that grow roots, but will never bear fruit. What it’s like when you thought “maybe someday”, but now she is getting engaged. How it feels to expect especially strong friends to exist that way forever, only to be faced too soon with the truth.

i’m learning to cultivate my own happiness from loved ones’ joys, no matter the envy inspired. i have found that at this intersection loneliness waits, as patiently as the devil at the crossroads of adulthood. Some days it’s more difficult to pass him by.

Life gets more real as i head east, somehow. Maybe it’s that everyone is free to move about the world again. Maybe it’s that my phone has better service. Perhaps i simply need to satisfy my cottage cheese craving. i know this is a lake, but i can’t shake this feeling here from the too-close shore: that i am watching as the sea takes her most massive gulp, the harbinger of a tsunami of new feelings for which i’ve never prepared.