Talking to all these people today made me miss not being alone, having only one person to call and talk to after a long day, updating them, falling back and forth, self-indulging and unloading and feeling like the other has no impatience in response. This morning, a woman joined me in the breakfast room. When she sat down in front of me at the table, I had an expectation that she would speak to me, would be talkative and want to get to know each other, but we both sat there, saying bonjour and looking past and through each other. I felt confused as to why she sat down next to me, and I awkwardly tried to make conversation, as she struggled with opening the package of butter just as I had a few moments before she sat down, and I giggled weirdly. Maybe I call him tonight, I somehow miss him. Probably why I have not called. Because I miss him and I am sad. And also, I am done and also, I did not feel that his messages were what I needed him to say and also, I am afraid of not being done and also, I am happy to let go, and still I miss him, when I think of life. And I think that this city is like Brussels and Madrid in one, and I hear people talk French and I don't know how to respond, and I wish he was there to take the lead and talk and to go back to our apartment with a pizza and a big hug, but both seems to come at a price I cannot afford. And I thought a few days ago that a main issue was that I had never admired him, that to me, he was like an object of beautiful art that was a privilege to have around and that I would take with me when I travel to feel at home, but that was a static thing that I had bought into; not something that has any agency in our relationship. But telling him that he was like a trophy wife was the least I could do. And I mean it literally. I could not tell him. I can't contact him without being honest; hurting him again and ending up longing for something that he is not. I thought of it yesterday at dinner, almost at surprise at myself, about what he had said: that no one could keep up with me, be dragged around life and time and space by me. I thought that it was right on point, and that either I was forcing myself to be alone, or I was forcing being myself, the latter of which would not be a bad thing, the first - open for debate. I remember thinking to write of the people I see, the stories they tell, the man that held his belt by the buckle, while carrying a violin case, the two girls on a scooter that crash on the pavement as the box they carry falls down, and they break out in laughter. I remember thinking that I have become impatient for my own processes, that I have numbed myself to the little things around me, and that traveling is what kept those things afloat in my mind.