The Collected Self

Indie B recently told me that remaining forever tethered to the moment of rupture is not good for me, and that I should move on.

Pfft. Easy for him to say. What could he possibly know about moving on? I complained that moving on is hard when the future is so uncertain.

He narrowed his eyes in a way that most would not notice and said that uncertainty is nothing more than what distracts us from reality.

We sat there blinking at each other for a long time after that.

Let me start here.

On October 17, 2018, a free-roaming stallion in Modoc National Forest in northern California was driven into a trap, loaded into a truck, and transported to a corral. The next day, I turned 40 in Hillsborough, North Carolina. On opposite sides of the country, our paths were set to intersect as we each navigated uninvited transitions, me into midlife and him into captive life.

This is our story.