Adulthood is learning that normal everyday things you take for granted are very, very, expensive. And difficult to choose. I realized there are a million different kinds of mattresses – springs, hybrids, hot-or-cold-sleepers, memory foam, all other sorts of foam. As the anxious shopper I am, I laid down one night and watched hours of mattress review videos to find the perfect mattress. All of this research was pretty useless because by the time my new mattress unfurled and was fully laid out, I knew that I would love it purely because I had chosen it.

A one-take write, meaning I wrote this in one sitting (with multiple cups of coffee)

September. The swallows migrate, a ballet in the sky. Through Western France, the Pyrenees, down eastern Spain into Morocco, across the Sahara. They dip down near rivers, lakes, and swoop back upwards. Their bodies are faint against the sky, creating translucent, shifting shapes.