This Body Is Breaking Down, But I

She Went Around With A Broken Heart, And She Wasn't Sure Who'd Broken It. She Thought It Was Herself, Mostly.

She Thought She Would Know When It Happened. But Now, As She Looked Around, She Wondered If It Was Really Like That At All. Maybe It Happened In A Million Different Ways, When You Were Thinking Of It And You Weren't. Maybe There Was No Gap, No Jump, No Chasm. You Didn't Forget Yourself All At Once. Maybe You Just Looked Around One Time Or Another And You Thought, Hey. And There You Were.

She Wanted Him To See All Of Her And Also None Of Her. She Wanted Him To Be Dazzled By The Bits And Blinded By The Whole. She Wanted Him To See Her Whole And Not In Pieces. She Had Hopes That Were Hard To Satisfy.

People Left A Lot Of Things Behind When They Went In The Water. Their Clothes, Their Stuff, Their Makeup, Their Fixed-up Hair, Their Voices, Their Hearing, Their Sight--at Least As They Normally Experienced Them....some People Lost Their Individuality In The Water, But Riley Always Felt Most Herself. Water Was Supposed To Symbolize Renewal, She Knew, But When Riley Swam, Pared Down, Alone, And Unreachable--she Felt A Deeper Sense Of Who She Already Was.

There Are Moments In Your Life When The Big Pieces Slide And Shift. Sometimes The Big Changes Dong Happen Gradually But All At Once. That's How It Was For Us. That Was The Day We Discovered That Friends Can Do Things For You That Your Parents Can't.