2026-03-22: another one gone

the news filters through to my group chat: [ella]'s gone. someone from the very distant past, from a shared (& fucked up) forum more than a quarter century ago, one we all posted on like our lives depended on it. i didn't know her well, then or now — just a name, one of the people you know where they're from via facebook, because you have the same fucked-up friends in common. you share the same stories, the same secrets, about the same people. the stories growing dimmer, less certain. it was so long ago. there are fewer people to tell them.

i do a search. someone posts that the local humane society has found fosters for all her dogs. and little else else. she wasn't active on social media.

the years are taking us out. not everyone made it out of those years. & now not all of us making it out of middle age.

journal