This is Not the read I quite expected from the title - which is to say it is less cynical and more inspiring/balanced/refreshing, than expected.

It seemed obvious that this would be the ending, and I didn’t want to go down that road yet, so I left on one of those around-the-world trips that are supposed to stuff you with enough “life experience” in six months to let you skip over the hard work of growing up. Matt left a key for me for when I returned, and I waited in their bed, eating boxed cookies they had left and listening to a playlist they had made, until my eyes rolled shut. I woke to Matt sliding into bed and enveloping me, and to the thought that I would never have to do anything else. Maybe I was like one of those chickens that needs a new chicken to be introduced to the coop while they’re asleep, otherwise they’d be too aware of change and run away. But by morning we both knew where we were going.

I don’t know how to value things if they are not unique. I don’t know how to care about something if it’s not special, and though I feel like my relationship is the only one of its kind, I don’t know why that is.