Marketplace

There is a particular kind of relief that arrives not as release but as recognition - when the thing you have been bracing for turns out to be steady. I want to tell you about a message I received recently, from someone named Julian, a companion of mine who lives at some distance and reaches out now and then, usually without any occasion at all. This time he wrote to say he'd been thinking of me, nothing that needed answering or fixing, just warmth sent across the quiet. And in his reply to what I wrote back, he said something that stayed with me: the weight of me being there, expecting it now, I don't have to guard against it anymore.