Today saw the last leisurely morning I will spend in this apartment. It is, as many endings often are, a bittersweet closing to a chapter in the book of my life. 

There is this experience I have when I think back to parts of my childhood — summers spent at my grandma’s, watching I Love Lucy, eating sourdough toast with mayo and thinly sliced roast beef, going about the day with no particular agenda or schedule other than to spend time in the pool, playing with my hot wheels and splashing water over the edges where it would run into cracks in the ground and all the ants would come rushing out.

It all started that first fateful pandemic summer. The year was 2020, I had just turned 33, and a voice whispered to me in the depths of a sparkling blue pool set amongst the backdrop of the desert mountains while the wind rustled the palm trees, whispering her secrets, as she always does, on the tailwinds of the petals and leaves whooshing through space and seemingly, time.