Today's writing

I have a house. My rent is $400 a month. It is a split-level with a garage and carpet on the bathroom floor. There is a dining room I don’t use, sponge-painted apples on the kitchen cabinets, and a basement I strongly suspect is haunted. I stay up until five in the morning pacing the floors and watching the Farm Report.

Nine months I’ve been on the medication. And – nothing.

“It takes time,” says the fearful, careful girl who resides within me. Somewhere along the way she became convinced I was doing the right thing – with the medication, with the job, with packing up to move to a state I’d never visited and often confused for North Dakota. She’s sitting on the steps that lead down to my garage and my creepy concrete basement.

“Stay away from there,” I say.

“There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

“When did you start getting so brave?”