Things have gone All Wrong. I come home each night, hoping to sleep it off, but dozens of suns have risen since that hope first stepped forward, and I still sleep with a clenched jaw. Even in my dreams, I am grappling with something—holding it so hard (skin?), and moving it as much as it will let me.

None of this is new. These are things that more than one of us have done more than once. And I have become enthralled with the shape of my missteps. They are kaleidoscopic, seeming first multifaceted, then perhaps a meaningless pattern, then certainly an endless repetition. There’s the death knell.

Tonight, I found myself staring up at a four-story Joker, salivating at the thought of a loose cannon. I kept thinking of my father and my brother. For the first time in years, my brother and I discussed our father. At the outset of the conversation, he said, “I can’t even talk about this.” What do you mean? “Dad was kind of a psychopath with me, but he was really a psychopath with you. I can’t bear that anymore.” You don’t have to. So there it is: a brand.

After the movie, a good coworker and a great friend brought a small and silly gift, but what did that matter? It was such an encapsulation of identity, and such a zeitgeist in our small and gentle friendship. I did not feel happier, but I did feel steadied, which means so much more.

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