Hit Send

There is potential for much loss in a three hour email.

Three hours to sort out your fears and insecurities, all the little wobbles of life that have come together into one massive fall. A failure to communicate. This...epic email. This magnum opus is a chance to reconsider, reword, reorder the chaotic sputum of a multiple missed-cue conversation.

Who gets to have a say?

Every word on the page is a vulnerability. It is far easier to misread meanings when the stakes are high than to grasp another's reality. It is simpler to be angry and shake the grasses, to perceive mud and fling it back the way you think it came than to extend compassion. To breathe. To trust that these words in your inbox are a missive of love or, at the very least, respect.

Three hours and you fall on the floor after you hit "send" because there is everything more you could say. Days more you could type onto this rectangular screen to reassure without breaking pace with the protective word shield you've fashioned because--who knows? They might receive this and assume ill intent despite your best wishes and word strings.

Backlash is tiring and tired is incautious. Tired makes permanently recorded mistakes beyond the pale of grammatical errors. Tired is vulnerable because tired is in need of rest, but there is no rest when anxiety is the pea beneath your mattress.

There are nightmares and sadness and even angry tears.

So you open the white box and type black letters you hope will transform into a digital bandaid so you can sleep at night. You want to close the door and the windows and double-lock all the locks to prevent monsters.

The real strength is in staying open.

Subject heading: here is my heart

Opening line: please be careful

Closing line: I'm sorry sorry sorry

Closing wish: peace peace peace

Hit send.