It’d be really nice to be chipper, or at least chipperish. It’d be nice if this place could help get me to chipperish. And if the meditation or whatever we’ll be doing jogged a new life path idea, that would be ideal.

Right now, the future feels like a black hole. A dark, costume-less, stale abyss of heaving gravity where Mom can’t help me.

I pull out the dumb brochure again and turn on my little overhead plane light.

It seems that a bunch of other women headed to this retreat and I have coordinated flights to Denver today, so that we can all be shuttled to the grounds together. I’ve positioned myself in the back left corner of the third bench in the Rediscover Yourself van we’re all loaded into.

A cute dark-skinned girl with braids and mesmerizing eyes is sitting next to me. She’s probably around my age. When I feel her look in my direction five minutes into the ride, I nervously pull out my brochure again to avoid speaking. The thing is looking pretty worn now, like I’ve been hoarding it in the top drawer of my nightstand for ten years.

The other girls and women are chatting with the super cheerful lady driving us. She has a ridiculous New York accent.

I tune in to what she’s saying for a moment. “We believe yoga can play a huge part in recovering—” And I tune back out. Yoga. Yoga is for people too damaged to do the activities they actually want to do.

A dull pain throbs in my low back and snakes down both my thighs. Yoga is for me now.

I pull up my hood and turn toward the window. The saddest part of all this is I need this retreat to work. I literally need to rediscover myself. What am I supposed to do now? I had enough trouble with this question during what I thought was a temporary recovery period. Now my goals are obsolete. I’m temporarily stuck … permanently on pause. That doesn’t make sense, but it’s true.

Mom has been little to no help on the issue. Little, because she gifted me a credit card so I can order groceries to the house and make things while I’ve been out of work.

I stick my hands in my sweatshirt pocket and fiddle with my AirPods, debating whether or not to pop them in again. I’ve become fairly dependent on angry music to get me through the day. It’s part of my routine. Wake up, breakfast with Mom, pop in my AirPods as she leaves me in our now George-less house so I don’t fall into a spiral of anguish, flip through the latest of Mom’s old recipe books, and choose my next subject.