I have a feathered duvet. It's very voluminous, which makes it very comfortable, and I often find myself wrapping my arms around it to help me get to sleep. This happens especially often on the nights I think of the things I usually avoid thinking about, on the nights I seek comfort.

This night was one of those.

I'd thought of the worst thing, the thing I'd put the most effort into pushing away: the fact that if my detachment remains, my isolation is perpetual.

A wave of despondency, now rare, flooded over me. I thought of all the opportunities I'd missed, the people I'd ignored, the people I'd forgotten, the experiences I could've had.

And then I thought of the cause: so easily identified and so easily removed. Yet I would not remove it. I had made my choice.

The highs went with them, but I had banished the lows. I had always been aware of the deal, and it had always seemed a fair price.

A fair price to protect myself.

But was it still myself I was protecting?

Suddenly worse than despondency: a hollowness, inescapable. Tears seeped into the feathers of my duvet, and I seemed to drown in them as I breathed in through the cotton wet with salt and snot. The feeling wouldn't dull, wouldn't change, wouldn't leave.

It was trapped by me, and I was trapped by it.

I longed again for the impossible.