She wakes, the top of her head like ice. She feels around near her pillow, her arm’s skin revolting against the cold with an army of goosebumps. Goddammit, where’s the fucking hat? A little grumpy this morning. Sparkles woke her—twice--way too early. She reaches down between the wall and the floor, feels the familiar soft knit, grabs it, and shoves it on her head. Fuck it’s cold in here. She stifles a “god-i-hate-rural” and ducks under the gloriously warm well-used comforter.

Reaching out and up to the head of the bed for her phone, she remembers: No Instagram. She turned all the accounts off yesterday. Oh, yeah, and she’s almost out of Facebook for now, too. They were dangerous placebos, making her think she was connected with people who cared and thought her work and her life were valuable enough to support. She also had no other choice but to shut down the distractions. She has 52 dollars and some change left to her name. She has no choice but to accept that, after three years of rural field research, she has now become rural poor. She's documented the near impossibility of escaping this condition. She cannot afford placebos.

Her gut clenches, and that feeling she’s disappearing threatens to drown her. She’s galaxies away from any world she knows. And, no one knows her—not a soul. Some think they do, but they only know a ghost of who she was—just a set of skills. Not a single mind has met hers. Not a single heart has felt hers. Not a single body knows hers. How long can a human mind last with no reflection? How long can a heart live without another? How long can a body remain whole without touch? The pain is overwhelming this morning. Fuck. She doesn’t have time for the pain. She’s got so much work still to do to exist. She's losing herself in a world without human mirrors.

Pushing her head out from under the comforter, she lies still, eyes closed, letting the powerful emotion move through her until it releases itself in tears and clogs her head so she can’t breathe. It comes hard this morning as the world lies down on top of her, making itself comfortable. The world's weight is not interested in her comfort. She presses her hands to her chest, repeating the same words she’s used so many times over the years in this work: “Breathe, calm. Everything is okay in this moment. Trust the universe. It’s been there for us every single time. Just keep working and moving forward.”

She knows she can’t go back, to anyone or anything. She’s had that conversation with herself for the millionth time. There’s just no “there” there anymore. It and they all disappeared while she was gone. She shouts this lesson at the little person in her mind who relentlessly keeps looking and trying, who refuses to see what’s actual: “THERE IS NO ONE THERE FOR YOU! THEY ARE ALL GONE! YOU NEED TO STOP LOOKING! STOP TRYING TO SHOW HOW YOU’VE CHANGED! NO ONE CARES! NO ONE KNOWS YOU! NO ONE CAN UNDERSTAND THE WORK! YOU HAVE TO LET GO OF IT AND THEM. YOU HAVE TO START OVER AGAIN!”

She leaves the phone on the nightstand, pushes her body out of the warm comforter, and jumps naked into the cold room. Finding 2 of the 3 pairs of warm leggings she owns on the floor next to the bed, she quickly slides one on, then slides the second pair on top. Shivering, she grabs the too large and too long tank top (1 of 3 she currently owns) and shrugs it on. She looks for the Bombas she kicked off under the comforter when it got warm last night; she finds them and slides them over cooling feet. Her two well-worn fleece zip-ups and an ugly warm-up jacket round out what make up her current core work-life wardrobe. It’s just a slight variation of what she’s been wearing for years living, working, and surviving at the bottom of rural cultures. 

She remembers that she sorted it out again last night. Wrote it on the whiteboards. She’s changing course. Again. ...