I was with my ex the first time I tasted a peanut butter pie crust sundae. At that time he was not my ex, of course—he was my very new boyfriend. I was the perfect age to shout-sing Taylor Swift (when you’re fifteen and somebody tells you they love you, you’re gonna believe them) and mold my identity around everyone I liked, pushing against their boundaries in lieu of forming any of my own.

It was a delicious sundae. I’d been to my hometown’s local ice cream chain many times before—I still carry golden memories of using the uneven exterior beneath the walk-up window as a little kid rock climbing wall—but I’d never ordered anything except vanilla soft serve with krunch kote. The peanut butter pie crust was a revelation.

It was his revelation.

My ex knew about this delicious thing—hot fudge, peanut butter, graham cracker crumble perfection—first, and he shared it with me, and I felt that bonded us more deeply. Even when I ordered our favorite sundae without him present on the increasingly rare occasions I hung out with my high school best friend or sister, I thought about Matt. Peanut butter pie crusts were ours. Everything we did together, even just a single time, was ours. My world existed in shades of him.

But then I left.

I mean, it wasn’t that simple, my departure. Those months, after so many years, were a snotty-teared mess. But finally I came out of “us” as “just me”, and even though we weren’t yet married (I had to cancel the DJ and photographer, deposits lost) I found myself internally battling for custody.

We didn’t have property or pets or children. But we had our own version of a life, the kind college students can easily build: favorite restaurants and TV shows and memories. Prom photographs. Mutual friends. Peanut butter pie crust sundaes. We were too young when we started dating. (I was too young.) I’d yet to build my own sense of self, and he was too willing to act as my backstop, and so I became his shadow, his shape, his image—“Matt’s girlfriend”, not “Haley as a person”.

What was ours and what was his and what was mine?

I wish I could tell you I ordered the damn sundaes and stopped thinking about him. That I still played “On My Way” by Phil Collins just because I liked it. That I said “these preferences are pretty tiny and trivial, anyway, and they don’t have to have anything to do with him”. In reality? My stamina improved, and I jogged faster over time, but the memories stayed on my heels.

When I started dating Sean, we went to our my beloved ice cream chain before I was ready. “We passed a soft serve place that sells one pound cones!” my new boyfriend announced when I arrived to stay with him and a few other friends at an up-north cabin. “We have to go!”

“I grew up in Wausau! Of course I know Briq’s,” I said. It still makes me think of Matt, I didn’t.

I told Sean to order the peanut butter pie crust. The employees made it wrong—no hot fudge—which was a disappointing introduction to the deliciousness. But I realized, sitting there with our friends as Sophie joked about how Sean can “do bad things to ice cream” (he did indeed order the one pound version), that to them peanut butter pie crust sundaes were Haley’s recommendation. They were my preference. Just mine.

It was a start.

Still, over the years when we visited my hometown and ordered Briq’s, stubborn and unwelcome recollections sometimes insisted on tagging along. You build new memories on top of old ones, you round out your life, but there’s no rewrite button. Reclamation is a slow process.

Until finally… the old foundation just crumbles. And you get in there to chuck out the debris and realize you breathe so much better without the moldy stench you’d somehow grown used to and erroneously accepted as a fact of life. You shout-sing from a later Taylor Swift album, now: I think I am finally clean.

This past summer Sean and I started making homemade peanut butter pie crust sundaes. The recipe: Melt peanut butter and dark chocolate chips in a mug, stirring to a smooth consistency. Scoop a hearty amount of Häagen-Dazs vanilla bean (vanilla bean, not just vanilla) ice cream on top. Sprinkle crushed pie crust (we like to buy the miniature premade ones in a six pack) over the whole thing. Then savor, passing back and forth after every spoonful, sharing the joy.

These sundaes are a new ours. They are not just an experience we happened to share once, to which I assigned unreasonable importance—they are an intentional creation inspired by old tastes and made even better. A tiny thing, to be sure, but a thing we built together.

One of many, many things we built together.

First drafted in Everglades National Park, after a week of mesmerizing nature experiences.

Paddling a designated mangrove trail, I cringe as our inflatable kayak rubs the bottom of the pond. “We’re stirring up the mud,” I worry aloud. “How many organisms call this mud home?” Sean shakes his head.

We turn around shortly after. By this point we’ve already seen five alligators (one swimming parallel to us, disquieting agility on full display) and a dozen birds and too many fish to count. I’m in awe that this has been our Monday morning activity.

I’m also wondering if it should have been.

So often close creature encounters fill us with wonder—they allow us to more fully appreciate our fellow animals. But they are also, so often, one sided. What does the cardinal get from me peering closely except a modicum of discomfort? The Florida tree snails are dormant for the winter so my photography (in theory) doesn’t stir their slumber, but still—I am here, in their world, leaning in. And I am clumsy and species-centric and unable to coexist without inadvertent harm.

“Oh no, you scared him,” Sean said of the small toad I tried so carefully to step around on yesterday’s trail. “Shoot, she ran away,” I echoed about the anole I paused too long to observe.

How much of these reactions is normal? Creatures move toward and away from each other all the time. Perhaps I am not adding to their stress (the alligators certainly seem unbothered by my presence in their swamp); perhaps it’s self-aggrandizing to think so. But perhaps I am. Perhaps I am layering harm upon small harm, weaving fear deeper into their nervous systems, making their already fraught existence harder, all out of a desire to love them.

Love can hurt. Especially when it comes from a person.

Little Me developed so much respect for the natural world by engaging with the natural world. That’s the justification for practices—some worse than others, certainly—at organizations from SeaWorld to the tiny elephant sanctuary I called home after graduating college. Where do we draw the line? On our guided night hike in the Everglades, I was thrilled to see a nightjar illuminated by the ranger’s flashlight—but guilt pinged within me, too, at the creature’s small form huddled in the beam. Would we, me and Sean and five middle-aged couples, have felt less inspired if we hadn’t gotten to see up close? Would the bird have felt less scared?

Whose experience is more important, and do they have to interfere with each other, and how can we ever understand costs and benefits?

These questions are top of mind thanks in part to Nerdy About Nature’s recent post on whether outdoor recreation is a form of resource extraction. He thinks it is, and I largely agree. I also agree with the article’s top comment: “outdoor recreation is a gateway to caring about the planet,” writes Nick Costelloe. “The more people engage with natural spaces, the more they’ll care about them—and the more willing they’ll be to advocate for climate solutions.”

I’m just not sure what, exactly, ethical engagement with nature spaces ought to look like.

This past fall we drove up a steep, bumpy road to the most beautiful dispersed campsite we’ve ever seen overlooking the Great Tetons. We carefully followed every National Forest Service guideline. No campfires. Don’t stay more than five nights. Drive on previously used roads. Pack in what you pack out; leave no trace.

I grinned almost every minute we were there. I threw wide my arms and teared up at the sunrise and leashed Scout the second we saw another animal or person. But afterward, despite being a perfect stickler for the rules, I still had to ask: Is it truly possible to leave no trace?

One morning a fox trotted along the edge of our site. They paused, head raised, before darting away down the mountain. Neither we nor our dog pursued this breathtaking creature—but the canid knew, unmistakably, that we were there. Every living thing nearby knew we were there. How much of my own joy (and make no mistake: I experienced bright, bursting, overwhelming joy) is worth native flora and fauna’s discomfort? How much do NFS restrictions, even when meticulously observed, actually mitigate human impact?

How much could I love that mountain—that view, those creatures—if I hadn’t breathed their same air?

I don’t know. It’s easy to preach platitudes about respecting the environment. (Pick up trash, be bear aware, don’t bend the rules, do what the organizations in charge tell you to.) It’s harder to trust that these actions are good enough. And everything is exacerbated by the crisis facing American public lands under our current administration, worsening, it seems, by the day: staffing cuts, hiring freezes, harrowing sound bites to “drill, baby, drill”.

Never has holding great wonder—the kind that inspires us to care, that doesn’t allow us not to give a damn—about natural spaces been more important. Never has asking how we skew the ratio toward much more awe than harm.

Virtue signaling:

* Oxford Languages (labeled derogatory): the public expression of opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate one’s good character or social conscience or the moral correctness of one’s position on a particular issue.

* Wikipedia: Virtue signalling is the act of expressing opinions or stances that align with popular moral values, often through social media, with the intent of demonstrating one’s good character.

* Helpful Professor: ... actions that are more about posturing and impression management than actual action.

Last week an Instagram commenter said I was virtue signaling on a post about off-leash dogs in on-leash areas. This is not that uncommon of a reaction. The “leash your dog” conversation continues to be more controversial than my past self ever imagined—I’m not entirely sure what other stuff (defensiveness, resenting urban restrictions overall, the struggle to read tone online?) comes up for people here, but the responses often seem bigger than the topic itself.

As I should have predicted, this particular thread quickly devolved. I know I ought not to give strangers on the internet much of my time—especially after they’ve tried to insult me by making fun of people with disabilities (seriously?!)—but the experience did get me thinking more about virtue signaling: the words themselves, what we take them to mean, how we use them to talk about other people’s behavior.

And I’m considering some questions now.

When someone accuses you of virtue signaling, it’s not a compliment. But (if we take the words at face value for a minute) why is it inherently bad to signal—we’re constantly relaying information to fellow humans—virtues we actually hold? Certainly it’s harmful to look down our noses and write others off and shut conversation out. But in a world of overconsumption and division and literal fire, shouldn’t we all talk about our values more? I am not ashamed of my virtues—I’m proud of my beliefs. Why would I not want to “signal” them to you and then hear about your own?

Of course, it’s hard to discern from a single post or comment section whether someone actually lives out their values. And preaching “just to sound good” is the red flag in definitions of virtue signaling as the term exists today. Virtue signaling is done with the intent of demonstrating one’s good character and is more about posturing and impression management than actual action. (This is why it’s often associated with “popular” moral positions—it’s a way to fit in, at least shallowly. Not that popular things are always worthy of derision, but that’s another essay.)

So if our fundamental goal is to insist on our own loveliness? Yeah. Ew.

My question is how we make that distinction in practice.

Don’t we all want to have (at least our personal vision of) good character? Don’t we all want the people around us to see and believe in that character? Acting with public opinion as the primary interest is toxic and unproductive. (I used to struggle immensely with my own ego in the dog world, particularly when it came to Scout’s reactivity training—and it sucked for everyone involved.) But is it truly possible to act with no interest in public opinion? We’re social creatures. Of course I want you to think I’m good, or thoughtful, or reasonable, or something like that! Of course you want the same!

I think this is where I’m arriving:

Surface-level virtue signaling is shitty, particularly if it’s inauthentic (professed values are not internalized and followed) and/or lacks nuance (I don’t believe there’s “objective” morality allowing us to insist other people make our own exact choices). But virtue signaling that includes an explanation of one’s reasoning—by a person who lives their values earnestly—isn’t a problem. I mean, it’s not really virtue signaling at all. It’s just… talking about what matters to us. Sharing where we’re coming from. Discussing how we make decisions.

I am aware I’m spilling too much ink about this. (Good thing blank document screens don’t run out like pens. 😉) But the way we—collectively, modern members of our species—communicate online both interests and tires me. Word’s aren’t everything, but they’re not nothing, and it’s worth thinking about how we use them.

Sometimes we need to be called into conversation about properly uncool things we’re doing. Other times those of us doing the calling out need to look inward first. Pointing out that someone is virtue signaling can be a genuine critique of their behavior… but it can also be a lazy attempt to dismiss their arguments without consideration. I find that latter possibility sad and scary.

Sean and I don’t regularly wear wedding rings. (The ones we do have are cheap nontraditional bands.) Our ceremony was short and, to be candid, kind of not a big deal. He did not only see me in my dress before our vows—he actually found my dress in the first place. I kept my last name. We rarely celebrate anniversaries beyond a “hey, look at the date!” nod.

I am unduly proud of the ways we eschew marriage norms—and I think I’m finally able to name why.

I worried for a while that my feelings were some sort of petty self righteousness or a “look how I’m not like other girls!” desire to be special. (Which... ew.) But that doesn't track with the fact that I’ve felt truly, properly happy for all the people in my life who do embrace western relationship norms in their own ways. Like, I have never once wondered if my best friend’s relationship is any less fulfilling or progressive or meaningful than mine because her ring is fancy gorgeous. I would never dream of telling my badass feminist colleague that taking her husband’s last name makes her a slave to the patriarchy. Still, though: I loved that I wasn’t doing these things.

What gives?

In my serious relationship before Sean, I relied on any and every surface-level signal that we were a couple. I needed evidence—traditional, obvious evidence—that our love was real. It wasn’t just the big things like my fancy engagement ring (come to think of it, my ex spent more time talking about how he chose the diamond on the day he proposed than why he loved me) or our over-the-top anniversary presents. We also needed constant nicknames and good morning texts and social media posts. (We once had a huge fight after a road trip because I captioned an Instagram of us—just one of many from those two weeks—something simple instead of using it to profess my love.) We were that couple. You’d hate seeing us on your feed, using public posts to insist things we didn’t even truly feel in a flawed attempt to grease the wheels of a squeaking, falling-apart relationship. (Sidebar: This habit made our breakup even harder because I’d spent so long convincing casual acquaintances we were great!! that they couldn't believe we’d actually had a billion problems. Ugh.)

Anyway: I needed so much “evidence” of our love precisely because there wasn’t, in reality, all that much love. I thought I could cover our failings with the right decor. What do you mean there’s a massive gap in the floorboards? No no, it’s nothing; we can hide it with a super fancy sofa!

It’s the exact opposite with Sean. I don’t crave external signals or classic traditions to reinforce our commitment because I already know we’re real. I believe in our love more than anything else—I have never doubted it, never felt the urge to mental-gymnastics something out of nothing.

Saying no thanks to nice rings and elaborate rituals isn’t a larger statement about how I think things “should” be done. (I do not believe there’s one “right” way in basically any area of life. And obviously not everyone uses traditions to mask massive relationship problems, in which case… more power to you. My past self is jealous.) No, my pride in this regard is about me, as an individual, emphasizing the juxtaposition between where I used to be and where I am now.

It’s funny that the excuse I gave some family members for why our nuptials were so small (I already planned a big wedding and we didn’t work out, I want my real one to feel as different as possible) turned out to be so centrally true. I love not doing these traditional things because I love not needing these traditional things.

If you want them, though? That’s a whole different story.

This morning I find myself saying to Sean, not for the first time: “You know, whenever I build a task up in my head and then actually sit down to do it, it’s easier than I imagined? Not sure why I put things off.”

I am not proud of this recurring declaration.

I’ve long been a bit of a procrastinator—usually motivated by perfectionism—who manages to rarely miss deadlines but consistently doubt the quality of what she turns in. I often feel like I don’t have the resources or focus or ability to do something perfectly right now… but maybe I will tomorrow. Or the next day. Or, you know, when rubbing right up against the due date.

This tendency got worse the first year we lived in our converted van. We were so busy with the logistics of a life on the road (and, admittedly, the associated joys) that I grew accustomed to putting tasks off before knocking them out in a late-night haze. I once set an alarm for three am to finish a copywriting assignment I’d had a full week to complete. (I mean, that’s inexcusable.) Even just last fall, after I’d organized my life on the Todoist app and kicked my writing practice into better gear, I still occasionally fell into the habit. I revised my first piece for ROVA Magazine (an article I was so excited to share) up until the morning it was due.

On the surface, everything is fine. I’m a functioning (perhaps even highly functioning) professional. Most of my clients and editors are happy to work with me; at least some of my quality concerns have more to do with imposter syndrome and overthinking than the actual work I submit.

But too often—entirely too often—I carry the weight of an uncompleted task days longer than necessary. It infiltrates my ocean swims. It colors my interactions with Sean. It pushes me to maniacally read other people’s words in hopes of forgetting that I am not (but should be) writing my own.

I feel even worse about this impulse to put things off because I work from such a privileged position. The reasons I procrastinate are 1) I’m concerned about doing things well enough or 2) I’m distracted by living in the real world—basically never because I’m truly exhausted, lacking support, or bereft of the right resources. There are people producing amazing art and commentary and impact in astronomically more difficult situations than mine. My life is so cushy. I should be able to write an article about training rescue dogs in one damn sitting!

Lately my procrastination takes a disguised form: Enthusiastically working on something that isn’t due while ignoring a piece that is. It’s increasingly rare that I put off a task because I’m lounging in the sun or burying my nose in a novel or scrolling social media. That’s good—that’s great!—but just because I’m writing doesn’t mean I’m writing the most important thing.

Of course, what’s “important” is a whole discussion. Sometimes inspiration strikes in a moment I blocked off to finish work for a client and the romantic artist in me latches on with worry the idea will disappear before I can act on it. Sometimes this situation produces a piece I love, and that sense of accomplishment lifts me through the rest of the day (maybe even the rest of the week), and I’m happy in all the ways: creatively, logistically, professionally.

Other times the inspiration is a red herring. Or too complex to tackle right away. And I can’t even live under the illusion that I was being productive by spending my time on a half-baked, questionable premise instead of the clearly defined task begging for my attention.

The solution here seems simple: Just do the thing. I know, logically, that I always feel better after doing the thing! Doing the thing rarely prevents me from also doing other things later on! Why is this a problem?!

A whole bunch of reasons, I think: I’m a creatively minded person willing to ride whims. I have no semblance of a structured schedule. I’ve built rapport enough with my editors—and also am content enough with my life in general—that the stakes usually feel low. (And while I used to long for this level of comfort, there’s no denying we sometimes need a fire under us to get going.)

So I’m trying to light more controlled fires. In the upper right corner of my desktop, a digital sticky note displays my top six life priorities in order. I’ve set a rule—and asked Sean for enforcement help—that I’m not allowed to reschedule tasks on my to-do list unless there’s an emergency. (Not wanting to put down an interesting book is not an emergency.) I’m reaching out to fellow writers to build a stronger craft community, something I’ve been lacking for too long. I am repeating, over and over, that “done and good enough is better than perfect”. I am setting more ambitious deadlines for client work—and communicating those deadlines to editors ahead of time so I have no way out.

I am also giving myself grace, because I love this life I’ve built (and lucked into), and there’s a reason I left my stable 9-5 in pursuit of greater flexibility. I do not need—and sure as hell do not want—to work all the time. I just want to work more effectively.

And float on my back in the Atlantic without worrying about missing checklist ticks.

We make it to our Harvest Host after an hour of thick traffic. I take Scout to pee, light my lavender candle, and luxuriate in the coziness of a rainy—and unpromised to anyone or anything else!—afternoon. I loved gallivanting around Miami with Evan and Marie. I loved our time in the Florida Keys and Everglades before that. But this is the first evening in ages where I have felt no pressure to do anything but simply exist inside my tiny home—and the first time ever, I think, where I’m getting a sensation that used to be common when we lived in houses and apartments. You know the one: You come back from a trip and organize a few things, and even though you enjoyed your adventure (and are probably sad it’s over), there’s this simple and comforting bliss in settling into your space.

I inhale. I look at Scout sprawled on the bed next to me. We are not in paradise—we are in yet another parking lot, the same sort of environment we’ve spent a fourth of our nights in since moving into the van—but 1) we are undisputedly allowed to sleep in our vehicle here and 2) there is literally nothing to do outside. I feel complete security in my home coupled with complete lack FOMO.

It is kind of dreamy.

Only a few weeks into our van life experience, I remember sitting at a laundromat not far from Hot Springs National Park. It was raining then, too, and I was surprised by how easily I romanticized the moment—in fact, by how impossible it felt not to. Sure, we were squeezed in a small lot with strangers walking by. We were doing chores. But I was in my home on wheels! I was with Sean and Scout in the middle of workday hours! It was novel and exciting and cozy to have a personal oasis parked atop the flooding pavement.

That’s how it is again, now. And I’ve come to appreciate the sensation even more because by this point we have been places where our van’s four walls don’t promise unmitigated comfort. We’re smart about where we park, and we take care to be respectful neighbors, and we’ve never been asked to leave—but that doesn’t mean we haven’t worried about the possibility. The last three nights in particular saw us paying for a privately owned lot in South Beach (under ambiguous restrictions) and doing our best impersonation of stealthy van lifers (difficult when your rig is schoolbus yellow and wears an internet satellite like a beret).

So tonight feels like freedom. Freedom from “will anyone bother us? will we be bothering anyone?” concerns and freedom from “we are in the most gorgeous natural environment imaginable and it would basically be the eighth deadly sin if we didn’t explore it to our maximum capacity” pressure.

I’m not sure what it says about me and us and our lifestyle of choice that this is the most peaceful I’ve felt in a couple weeks, but I am perfectly pleased about it.

“She doesn’t require an ounce of management when people don’t expect her to be a Labrador” — summing up Scout’s ability to happily coexist with strangers

We just spent a long weekend with my brother-in-law and his girlfriend in Miami. After we bade them farewell, I found myself gushing to Sean about how perfect Scout is (“I mean, she’s the most perfect creature to ever walk the planet, right?!”) and gushing to her (not that she understood, of course, though she did like my tone of voice) the reasons she deserves a big thank you. The people we love deserve a big thank you, too.

So here’s some gratitude.

Scout Finch: Thank you for rolling with our chaos—for peeing in whatever random parking lot we bring you to next (and in all types of weather) and never barking at strange city sounds or passerby. Thank you for allowing us to adventure without you when needed. Thank you for boasting one of the strongest pet dog stomachs I’ve ever encountered. Thank you for, despite your intestines of steel, still not eating discarded sidewalk food. Thank you for loving our van home so much. Thank you for feeling safe and comfortable in your crate. Thank you for handling a few boring days unbelievably well for your breed’s expectations. Thank you for welcoming new friends with a quick sniff and adorable wiggle followed by complete neutrality. Thank you for gracefully allowing those new friends in your house (I know it’s not very big to share). Thank you for never demanding any sort of set routine.

Friends new and old: Thank you for following instructions about interacting with our sensitive dog. Thank you for laughing when I make the (admittedly weak) joke that she’s a liar when explaining that even if she sits directly in front of you with perfect sweetness, she’d prefer you didn’t reach for her face. Thank you for humoring me when I over-analyze one of her quirks not for the first time. Thank you for understanding when we’re on a schedule dictated by her bladder. Thank you for making everything so easy. Thank you for loving her, too—the most important extension of us—even when “love” looks more like reserved respect and short ball throws than the unlimited snuggles you might have first dreamed.

Drafted four hours after sunset in Bahia Honda State Park on February 15th.

It’s clichéd to be inspired by the night sky, and yet getting to know the stars feels something like a revelation. Tonight I find Polaris without help even though the northern horizon is washed with artificial light. I think I might see the Milky Way, just a barely-there glow near Orion, and the internet confirms my guess when I look it up later. I can point Sean to Taurus without hesitation when he asks.

This newfound, growing intimacy—between me and the universe—is exhilarating. I walk to the bathroom building with my neck craned, weaving across the pavement like a drunk even though we have yet to uncork our bottle of wine. I am affected by something simpler than alcohol, awash in the drug that touched my ancestors hundreds of thousands of years ago when they, too, looked up: wonder.

All those specks of light, stark against the black, are pinnacles of awe and imagination and comfort. I am so small. Our universe is infinite. What is there to do but look and look and look? Point and exclaim and feel my heart beat and measure my breath and write about it all, clumsily, later?

I keep realizing clichés are often clichéd because they’re true. It’s no accident that the night sky inspires me like it’s inspired person after person since the dawn of our species. This is no boring, overused metaphor—no tired, oh-come-on experience.

It’s one of the realest things to ever stir my chest.

I only regret that it took me 28 years to appreciate with depth.

Today I’m struggling with the reality that sometimes when I say “I made a different choice” other people hear “so I think yours is stupid”.

The messiness makes me think, vaguely, of Lauren Oyler’s essay collection No Judgment. Oyler talks about how “no judgment” is a silly thing to say when the truth is we judge each other all the time. It’s like adding “no offense” to not-exactly diffuse an inarguably offensive comment.

But do we really judge each other all the time?

I guess by the Oxford Languages definition, yes. We can’t help but “form an opinion or conclusion about” everyone and everything we interact with. But those opinions aren’t always negative. While I can’t help but judge you, I am very rarely judging you. (Translation: While I can’t help but compile an impression of who you are and how you live, I am very rarely thinking “this person sucks”.)

The “my choices don’t have to be the same as yours” idea first started coming up for me in the dog training world. Scout is a sensitive dog, so I approached her training—and still approach our daily life—differently than many friends with more exuberant companions. On occasion I still find myself in heated discussions (particularly when it comes to methodology nuances like the ethics of punishment… and whether we’re referring to “punishment” in an operant conditioning context or a more colloquial way, which is a whole other essay) but most of the time I think I’ve got the nerdy open-minded dog owner thing down. If you are happy, and your dog is happy, and your choices don’t hurt anyone else? Heck yes! (Listen: You can hear me cheering for you all the way from south Florida.) And it takes a lot to make me second guess the way Scout and I live now, while a few years ago it took literally nothing.

But diversity of thought and experience is increasingly relevant in other areas of my life—areas I’ve spent less time sitting with and hold more insecurity about. Sean and I have become quite “nontraditional”. We’ve lived in a van for more than two years; we don’t want to have kids; we’re married, but I didn’t take his last name; our wedding ceremony was led by a friend and took place on a crowded afternoon beach; we don’t work full-time 9-5 schedules; I don’t use shampoo or facial cleanser anymore; we have very few material belongings; we don’t celebrate most holidays or exchange gifts; I could probably go on but even this list is enough to make me worried I’m ostracizing you.

Some of these nontraditional choices are things we feel strongly about. We have spent ages talking about children, for example, and took intentional steps to not become parents. Others happened sort of on accident. There is no big logical reason giving each other holiday gifts hasn’t become a lasting part of our relationship.

But all of them can be hard to talk about. And no matter how much I assert—how much I believe—that we do not have to be the same to be supportive and kind and connected, I still sometimes feel scared diving into the ways my choices might differ from yours. What if I offend you? What if you think I am unreasonable?

What if a misunderstanding stunts what could have otherwise been a great friendship?

On the one hand, I enjoy feeling “different”. It would be dishonest to pretend otherwise—when Joy Sullivan wrote that as an ex-Evangelical she finds herself turned on by other people’s judgment, I nodded so hard my neck twinged. Sean and I love being the “weird” aunt and uncle figures. (I have been working on a separate essay about what it means to be different for about a year now, trying to unspool my complicated emotions about “specialness”.)

On the other hand, I want desperately to fit in. I only need a few fingers for the number of places—physical and situational—I’ve felt I truly belong, and on a bad day I don’t think I fit even in those. Doing things differently from other people I admire can heighten this anxiety because so often we bond over shared ideas and habits and beliefs (even if they seem “little”). What if you throw me out because you are obsessed with skincare and I eschew most forms of it? What if you believe I am judging you for changing your last name because I vehemently kept mine? (I’m not, I swear!) What if being a loving, badass parent is so core to your identity that you’re subconsciously hurt I don’t want the same thing?

Let me be honest: I struggle turning those questions around on myself. I think, tentatively, I am good at accepting the people I love. But one of the reasons I worry about how other folks receive me is because I worry about how I receive them—at least in private. Am I properly imagining their lives and situations? I mean, probably not, right? That sort of clarity seems downright impossible, so the poisonous voice in my head declares that we must all be falling short and that trying to stretch is too frightening, too unlikely, to be worthwhile.

I want to be unapologetically myself. (“Just be you!” boasted a hand-painted sign in a coffee shop this morning, as if it is the most obvious thing in the world. I won’t get into the confounding variables about who “we” even are, at our cores.) But I also want to be liked. I want to be “different” enough to be interesting but not so different we don’t have a strong basis for connection. In short: I don’t want to piss anybody off. I don’t want to get pissed off.

And that is a problem.

Wanting to embrace nuance and focus on the things that unite us is lovely, but asking for—and so freely offering—idiot compassion is not. It’s okay to have a point of view. It’s okay to express that point of view. It’s okay to trust in the strength of my real, honest relationships—and to bet on new ones, too, give all these bonds the chance to handle division.

I am once again thinking about the fact that Scout is going to die. Not soon—not if all goes as planned, if we continue to be so lucky in our lives together—but not in a distant unimaginable future, either. She will die and I will have to go on without her (how?) and my habit of scrolling through old photos, soaking in memories, will feel different than it does now.

It already feels like grief just to realize how much the three of us have changed since I adopted our shy-but-sweet stray heeler. Scout’s body shape has sagged. Her ears and whiskers are graying. Sean and I have new wrinkles around our own eyes.

Of course core parts of our lives are the same—we love each other; we have great fun; we prioritize play—but I still feel vaguely like I’m blinking in confusion on my way out of the movie theater or waking from an accidental nap. How much time has passed, you say? Where am I, again?

All this (*gestures wildly*) is amplified tonight because Sean and I reminisced. Reminiscing itself is a common occurrence, but this time we went through his photo library instead of mine—and nearly every image on his phone is of Scout. He’s not much of a photographer by default, but he always listens when I, with hands full or camera out of reach, implore him to “take a cute photo of the pup”.

There are so many moments I’d forgotten. (Scout sitting by the front door of our newly purchased house in Florida while Sean hung out of the attic, renovation dust coating everything; the wonky wall climb setup we tried to build when I thought I’d get really into GRC Dog Sports; her fabric beehive toy stuffed with small squeaky toys; the ancient pink frisbee she dug up in the yard that I later threw on the roof not once but twice.) There are so many more I’ll never remember without images to help.

It’s not that I want to go back in time. Our life today is my favorite version—I have never felt more loved and steady and proud.

But my contentment exists alongside heavy sadness. I miss my 21-year-old self. I miss Scout, fresh from the humane society, even though I thought her reactivity training might break us. I miss Sean introducing me to bands I’d never heard.

I am aware in some back part of my brain that these emotions might be a cliched I’m-approaching-30-ish thing. Next month Sean turns 28—I join him in July. I’ve been drafting a longer essay about defining myself as young for so long and realizing that is a fragile, ill-advised core identifier. (Olivia Rodrigo, parasocial little sister of my dreams, once again sings in my head: When will I stop being great for my age and just start being good?)

Or maybe it’s that we’ve been moving for more than two years in our van now—and while I like to think I’m adept at reflecting the whole way through, sometimes momentum carries you until a quiet moment like tonight when its croon fades beneath time’s tempest and suddenly you are almost drowning. Not quite drowning; you’re good at swimming, and you’ve always loved the water. But almost.

Earlier I asked Sean if he ever grieves the past even though right now is great. He said of course. (Then he made some joke about missing when his body, which can still easily run seven or eight miles in the southern heat, was more nimble. Leave it to him to help me see how ridiculous I’m being.)

We’ve done a lot of living in our six-plus years together, me and that boy-man and our dog. A lot of living and a lot of figuring and a lot of feeling. We have more to do.