Last night, I slept as deeply and undisturbed as I have in months. I woke up this morning much later than I’d planned, my body heavy, and unwilling to move on its own. Seamus slept against my hip, Marlowe was curled up next to me, her little face resting against my head.

I took my time waking up, and coaxed myself out of bed.

The wood floors of my house felt cool beneath my feet as I made my way into my kitchen and made the first of what will be many cups of coffee — not because I need coffee, but because I’ve figured out a way to make cold brew coffee that gives me the most delicious cup of coffee I’ve ever had.

Through the living room, I paused to kiss Anne good morning. I walked down the hallway into my office, sat down in front of my computer, and began my day.

I read emails, checked the morning news, glanced at Twitter, moderated comments here and at Radio Free Burrito.

Then I looked at a blank composition window, unsure where to begin. I looked into myself, tried to find something that needed to be recounted, a story that needed to be told, an amusing event over the last few days that was clamoring to be translated from memory and experience into narrative.

I found a single thing, but it’s actually too personal and painful to share. That one thing, though, once identified, starts to feel like a bug bite, demanding to be scratched and then itching more, asserting itself more, the more I scratched it. Though it is, in relation to everything else in my world, very small, it became the biggest thing, the only thing, pushing out everything else

And yet, I can’t.

So I begin typing, putting together images and moments from when I woke until when I began assembling them into words.

And when I get to that point where the thing asserts itself again, it holds me and will not let me pass.

And so I write it, but I don’t press publish. I put it away, in a document that is just for me, and I write this instead.