Sunday nights are always lousy. 5pm comes and the person (me) who least wants to do it corrals the rest out of the apartment and to the car and to the 2h45m drive upstate to where they will spend the week. Then I drop them off and turn around for another 2h45m drive. And I dread the week ahead while acknowledging what a blessing it is and apologizing aloud for not being happy. I see God as the doting parent giving me every perfect present on Christmas morning and I unwrap them all and smile and nod and then sigh in the corner. What a cruel thing to do to a loving parent.

And I always ask myself aloud as I drive "what do you want?" and I usually answer "a trillion dollars" and I ask "and then what?" and sometimes I'll detail some life where I bought one of the brownstones on 10th Street or have an ancient farmhouse in Radicondoli. But then I think about how amazing my apartment is and how much it frightens me with its emptiness and isolation six floors above ground. Would it feel any different (or worse) in a larger space on 10th street or in Tuscany?

I saw this Instagram reel where a rich guy said people always answer (when asked what they'd do if they were suddenly rich and didn't have to work) that they would travel. And how that's such a cop-out because it's hard to fail at traveling. Then he cited writing a book as a more virtuous goal. But I've done that repeatedly without benefit of wealth or retirement and failed at it.

I have a book I started just the other day that I'm loving. That's a nice thing. I would like for work and bills to all go away and be in that girl's bed reading it aloud to her but I'm sure that version of me would feel stifled and think it would be nice to be alone and stay up later and scroll through Instagram.