i got an email from an ex today — it's a bit of a telepathic moment, both of us i think were strategizing and hand-wringing about how to get in touch with each other after a long period of Never Talk To You Again. there’s a lot to be said, and it’s an incomprehensibly fragile undertaking: to hold each other’s hearts or even to bend each other’s ears after everything we’ve been through; to make all those apologies, necessary and inundant; to understand those strange shapes of another human and the strange shapes of their desire.

it is a particular challenge to find all of someone, to come open and vulnerable after all this time and heartbreak, and respect and admire them in the opaqueness and inscrutability of their heart. to connect like this, to move with deep intimate honesty and esteem, between two people who have lost the way to each other — it is immense in its complexity, so google’s ai assistant has asked if i would like the email summarized.