Love in the Time of Microsoft Word

What loving looks like when I’m writing

photo from personal archive

Read this one for free here. You’ve already paid by knowing a writer.

There’s a meme that says, “Have you ever dated a poet? You may be entitled to compensation.” Every time I see it, I think of him. My partner. Kind, steady, unexpectedly durable. Unaware he was signing up for an emotional hostage situation run by Microsoft Word.

People believe writers are eccentric in a charming, scarf-wearing way. But the truth is we’re just emotionally erratic people with a license to narrate. We don’t feel more than others, we just won’t let anything go.

I don’t have a schedule. I don’t need rituals. I don’t even need my laptop. It starts in my head. Always. Like a glitch. A vision. A small narrative infection. Once it hits, everything else falls out of focus.

He knows the signs. He doesn’t sulk. He waters the plants. He takes out the trash. He lets me vanish.

He once said he loves watching me write. That it’s “mysterious”. I told him that mystery is just the experience of being shut out. He grinned.

We don’t fight about the writing. Why would we? He gets the bit. He’s in on the absurdity of living with someone who can’t experience a breakup, a road trip, or a burnt omelette…