I’ve been calling around to find a therapist to deal with the bundle of trauma that I’ve been holding tightly closed inside of me. The terrifying dreams that persist, three years later.

I met him, under the swaying trees, behind my apartment. He was smaller than I expected, our eyes meeting on a level. He’s my age, yet he seemed a decade older. Do I appear that old? I still get ID’d in the liquor store, every single time.

We talked, and he handed me a bottle of wine, and I was so surprised that I had nothing to say but a quiet, Thank you. I will enjoy this.

And that was it. We walked away. I’ll probably never see him again.

The hut.

We packed overnight gear and food on our backs and ski toured back to this glorious hut perched on an alpine ridge.

We arrived to an empty hut and quickly settled in, setting snow on the stove to melt, pouring ourselves wine from the box that we’d packed in.

Going out for a ski at sunset. Sitting on the snow on a ridge overlooking the expanse of the provincial park. So quiet. Silence. The roar of silence in my ears. The landscape blanketed in a smooth layer of white.

Back in the hut, a man came up to us.

“Are you the custodians?” he asks.

“No, but maybe we can help?”

“Oh, sorry, I totally thought you were the custodians. You seem to belong here.”

It was one of those moments of realising that he was right. Of knowing that there is a place in the world where I fit perfectly. Where I feel confident, and happy, and capable.

In the evening, we rested against each other reading books, while the other guests made food and drank wine and booze and played cards. The hut becoming steamy and hot, the crowd becoming wilder and louder as the night deepened. Leaning against him and feeling effortlessly happy.

You are so easy to love.

Crawling into our bunk together, unzipping the sleeping bags so that our bodies could lay together.

His body against mine, up there, warm in our dark den, in the mountain hut.