youdontknowaboutthis

[youdontknowaboutthis]

Things about me that seem like high-functioning autism traits

Extremely sensitive to loud noises

Extremely sensitive to oils, liquids, dirt, etc on skin

Drive to systematize understanding of everything, especially other people

Can’t read lips

Stimming by popping knuckles, bouncing leg, gently chewing tongue, and previously biting nails

Always felt like other people experience the world differently

Have to consciously figure out greetings and closings in conversation and phone calls, essentially picking from a list

Have to consciously figure out how far to stand when talking to someone

Don’t like eye contact and have to consciously figure out where to look when talking to someone

Always feel out of place in any group

Uncomfortable in crowds of people

Bumping into others when walking because I can’t tell what direction they are intending to go

Difficulty understanding what gifts other people would want

Handwriting difficulties

Difficulty understanding people speaking

Strong desire to follow rules

Preference for non-fiction over fiction

Poor hand-eye coordination and general clumsiness

Extremely surprised at physical touch

Difficulty with small talk

Need for order, cleanliness

Eagerness to please

Difficulty understanding how to apologize

The start of my last relationship…

Very detail oriented

[youdontknowaboutthis]

The only thing that really changes the world is when somebody gets the idea that love can abound and can be shared

Fred Rogers

[youdontknowaboutthis]

Traits in a partner

Must-haves

Beautiful

Extremely kind

Has lots of friends

Has hobbies

Respectful of everyone

Mature

Loves animals

Spiritual

Open-minded

Sarcastic

Enjoys travel

Intelligent

Sincere

Determined

Strong

Witty

Playful

Honest

Likes the outdoors

Strong integrity and ethics

Optimistic

Curious

Energetic

Enthusiastic

Empathetic

Affectionate

Humorous

Gentle

Well-rounded

Forgiving

Responsible

Wants

Neat

Conscientious

Care-free

Likes art and poetry

Great English skills

Multi-lingual

Multi-cultural

Would be okay living out in semi-rural area

Sarcastic

Wanderlust

Hard-working

Peaceful

Independent

Perceptive

[youdontknowaboutthis]

My meaning of life

Logically, I know there is no meaning to the universe. It’s easy to think that no universal meaning would naturally lead to nihilism. That is presupposing that the meaning of life must be universal, however. I reject that in favor of finding a meaning that is local to my existence.

When I meditate and the thoughts clear, there are only two things in consciousness. First, I can choose where to focus my attention. Whether on a body part, on breathing, or on nothing. My attention itself is the second piece, that somehow I am aware of the results of this choice. A choice of attention and the awareness of that choice are the base components of my consciousness and thus my existence. I can mindfully observe thoughts, emotions, and the influence of my subconscious, but I cannot pierce the veil and see deeper than these two components.

Accepting the existence of these components is a cognitive dissonance. My knowledge of the universe implies that my consciousness is nothing but a simulation of an ego, and yet I have this visceral awareness and “I” exist. I know that I am just a bunch of atoms acting deterministically in neurons and cells, and yet I have this unbreakable illusion of free will. I can never believe I cannot choose, because logically then I would be unable to believe at all.

It is a paradox. It doesn't make sense, and it's essentially an existential crisis. I refuse to live in existential angst of course. So I simply must accept this dissonance and continue to search for meaning.

Finding this meaning requires a personal search. What do I value most? I value my ability to choose above all else naturally. Every sense, every feeling could be removed, and if I was still able to be aware and choose my awareness I would still exist. To not be able to choose is to jeopardize my existence, and I value my existence intrinsically. My most core value logically then must be life, because I am life.

I could interpret this to mean that I should maximize my life. That I should do whatever is possible to lengthen my life or maximize my pleasure. This is where I think the logical argument ends and the search becomes truly personal.

[youdontknowaboutthis]

Children of the stars

As we spin in our little pile of dirt around the Sun We appear to be the center of the universe Eons of light slowly making its way to us 13.7 billion years of it, The history of our cosmic home As we look out into the vast expanse We look and see a mystery The universe trends toward entropy Complex structures, More massive than our feeble minds can ever comprehend, Fade away Like sand castles against the tide Until eventually it will all be darkness And we will be gone We look and and look and we see no one else No one around to tell us why we are here No one around to explain what’s next The universe wants to make things simple And we are complex Our very existence defies the natural order of things And so we seem to be alone

Being alone is a funny thing Before the first cell was formed on Earth Was anyone ever alone? The universe was just a bunch of quarks Logically arranged, and logically dead Until that arrangement became something more Those atoms became life And then loneliness meant something Life created life, which created life, And then we were there

To think That stars were created, Then died, Then created anew to form our atoms That those dumb, primitive atoms lined up perfectly And perfectly, again and again over millennia To culminate in our creation To give birth to consciousness And we are alive

Yet we are products of the universe And obliged to its laws To think that every domino in the universe Just so perfectly lined up Creating the stars, and earth, and cells And our thoughts And our desires And love And yet we are above the forces that shaped the universe? That we can choose our actions? That we are above the natural laws that exploded the universe and birthed the stars and created a few trillion atoms of carbon and arranged them just so to be so arrogant as to call itself “I”? No, We are of and by the universe

The laws of the universe may not give us free will We may not have ethereal souls that live beyond our meager lifespans We may be automatons of meat, Oblivious to the true source of our decisions It may be the height of hubris To think we can escape our fate But this does not make life any less profound In fact, it is beautiful because of it We are the greatest thing the universe has ever created We are the first to not be alone We are the first to learn, and cry, and laugh We are the first to love And all because a few bits of cosmic dust Fell into the right spots, We are children of the stars

[youdontknowaboutthis]

A brief history of me

[This series of posts is a cohesive narrative designed to help me understand my current mind based on my past experiences. Writing it down helps me organize my thoughts and make insights that I would have never discovered.]

[This series of posts is brief in that it leaves out a lot of exposition and background. Instead it focuses on the most pivotal events, details, and descriptions in my life. For example, I had many happy events with my parents, road trips, caring moments. Normal kid stuff. But there were of course negative events too. By their nature, they had a bigger impact on who I am, so they are over-represented.]

My family

When I was born, I had a brother who was a couple years older and a sister who was 7 years older. My brother was mentally retarded and physically handicapped. My sister helped take care of me and change my diapers.

My father was the son of an alcoholic who probably abused his wife. His stunted relationship with his father made him prone to anger and made him bad at expressing emotions like his father. While my mother was strict that he was to never hit me, I was frequently yelled at. My early memories of my father are mostly the fear I had of him losing his temper. To this day a grown man yelling at me will cause me to break down.

My brother died when I was 1.5 years old as a result of his condition. I was not old enough to go to the funeral and don’t remember him. My mother tells me that because of his death she was depressed for about 5 years and wasn’t emotionally available during that time. 

I’m told as a kid I would try and suffocate my brother with a pillow. I must have been barely a toddler. Maybe I was jealous of the attention given to him or maybe I was just playing rough.

I wasn’t a bad kid... wasn’t a good kid either

As a result of the emotional unavailability of my parents, I developed a strong avoidant attachment style. I wasn’t emotionally close to my parents. The parent-like relationship to my sister meant that I never felt very close to her either. I learned to be independent and rely only on myself.  I had no experience forming intimate relationships and sharing my feelings because of this.

I was a smart troublemaker who was willing to lie, but early on I was bad at lying. I wasn’t able to emphasize with other people. I couldn’t really understand what other people were feeling or why. I would disobey and the only thing I was concerned about was if my dad would yell at me or my mom would get angry.

I didn’t really have a conscience, and I explicitly realized that in fourth grade. My teacher was discussing something about morals and what a conscience was. I said nonchalantly, maybe prideful that I didn’t think I had a conscience. My teacher was a little shocked and said something like “Surely you must have something that tells you what’s right or wrong?” I didn’t really, but I sensed her tone and backpedaled. I said either I was joking or I guess I did then. I remember very well that I was afraid of getting “caught.”

In school I was a nerdy, weird, unsociable, unlikable kid. I went to a private, rich elementary and middle school. My parents were lower middle class but were also bad at managing money. I had few friends and was at the bottom of the short social totem pole. My class was only a hundred or so kids and I had few friends.

I was constantly getting in trouble for dumb reasons. I was mean and would mess with people for no reason. My dad really likes sports and so I would end up playing on a lot of different youth sports teams. I remember there was an incident in baseball where I would walk through the dugout and kick over other kids’ water bottles. There was no intimidation involved, I wasn’t bullying. I just enjoyed misbehaving. I saw it as mild disobedience, I couldn’t empathize with the other kids who had to deal with the consequences.

I never had any desire to harm anyone, I was not a sociopath. Maybe there was a moral compass sitting around in there somewhere. Or maybe I just knew what other people’s moral compasses were, and I knew that the penalties for “wrong” behavior was more severe. I could use logic and reason very well. I knew the golden rule from church and school, “do unto others.” Perhaps it was self-serving behavior, I didn’t want 

I’m ambiguous here about my motivations. I remember some of the logical reasons I did things, for example to avoid getting caught. For reasons that will be clear later, I don’t have many memories about “why” I did things. I can only guess at my motivations based on vague feelings and context.

Self-development and emotions

I read a lot of books. I would go to the public library, check out a stack of 15 books a foot and a half high, and read most of them within weeks. I always wanted to learn more about science, but hated any kind of work. The books would satisfy my insatiable curiosity about how things work or what happens next.

In books everything was clear, you could read exactly what every character was feeling. Reading them would let me escape and I would be always wondering what happens next. Books would make me feel more than I did at any other time in my early life. My parents thankfully indulged this by taking me to the library just about any time I wanted.

My parents had dial-up internet and had recent enough computers. I naturally loved the internet. In elementary school I found internet porn online. I was curious and it was something I knew my parents wouldn’t allow.  I got caught, eventually, and my internet access was stopped for a while. Deceiving or disobeying my parents definitely gave me a thrill. I would watch TV shows I wasn’t supposed to just because I wasn’t allowed to do it.

From my earliest memories my emotions were unclear. I don’t remember being unhappy, but at the same time I don’t remember being very happy or excited either. I think of this like the static on a TV screen. I think this is partly why I loved activities that could greatly heighten my emotions like books or misbehaving. Nothing really stands out emotionally like those things did.

When I look back at the memories, I don’t really have any knowledge of what the feelings were, there is more of a binary “feeling” or “not feeling” that was fuzzy. This static refers to both the feelings I had at the time as well as my memories of the feelings, because at this point in my life I’m unable to discern the difference.

In middle school, I had enough practice with lying and getting away with stuff that I stopped getting in trouble as much and my relationship with my parents improved. I was smart, and so I realized exactly the bare minimum I could do to get by in just about anything. I think around then I become socially aware enough to know angering people was bad for my social standing and I developed a couple of friends. My social life was something I was constantly self-conscious about as I was still very unpopular. Puberty also was starting though there weren’t any major symptoms yet.

My path to depression

At some point in middle school, the emotional static disappeared and I was left with a strange lack of emotions. Before this point I remember the emotions being there. The memory is just lacking the feeling of emotion, which is why I think of it like static. Now there was just... Nothing? All my emotions were blunted, and I guess the default was sadness. There wasn’t any event that I can remember causing this. I don’t even know when it started.  I was seriously depressed and I had no idea why.

My dad would come home late most nights from work. I strongly remember how sometimes he would be angry and throw his keys and other things down on the counters and floor. I would watch from upstairs then go to my room and cry into a pillow for 30 minutes. I didn’t know why I was crying but I cried. The best explanation I have is that I was reflecting his emotions, since mine were kind of empty.

I kept my emotional state hidden easily enough from my parents. I think they were expecting teenage angst at my age. Instead of the usual teenage “storm” of emotions, I was experiencing nothing and, paradoxically, sadness. One night I sat on my bed crying for most of the night. I didn’t know why I was crying. My mom came and sat with me for hours. The only feeling that was worse than the sad nothingness was the feeling when she left. This struck me hard at the time because I never really felt strong love to my parents.

I was miserable and wanted to stop existing. I started looking up ways to kill myself. I didn’t think about what I would be missing in life or how my parents would feel. My empathy was definitely not functioning at all. I just wanted the misery to be over.  I was smart enough to keep up fake emotions and be sociable. I thought of this like a facade, everything was fake and I was just trying to be happy on the outside to keep up appearances and prevent questions that would lead to conversations about feelings.

My memories are extremely fuzzy from around this time. If I try to picture what fourth grade looked like, I think of the classroom I was in, the teacher, what I looked like in the mirror and pictures. If I picture sixth and seventh grade, it’s just blackness. If I try to think of what I looked like, there’s nothing there. If I try to think of what school I was in, I can’t automatically recall it and have to consciously deduce what it must have been.

Trying to kill myself

[These paragraphs are tough to read, and tough to write.]

I remember reading internet forums and discussion boards about committing suicide. I wanted an easy, painless method. In keeping with my SOP, I wanted to do this without being caught. If I got caught, I would have to admit my feelings, an intimacy that I did not want to share.

At this point I was already very experienced at managing risk. I was too afraid, for example, to sneak something on my parent’s credit card. I knew I could get caught before I killed myself, or maybe my attempt would quietly fail and they would notice it later and start asking.

I was more afraid of getting yelled at than I was afraid of death. I have no doubt I would be dead today if I had not been so afraid of punishment.

I had basically no money for this so I had to be creative and research. I decided I would use an “exit bag.” You take a large amount of sleeping pills or barbituates and then cover your head with a bag with some kind of rubber band or elastic around your neck. You hold the bag open while you fall asleep. When you do, your hands relax and you asphyxiate. 

I was very clear to myself on my intentions: I was going to kill myself and stop the sadness because that was the logical thing to do. No hesitation or thoughts of “what if,” I simply realized that’s what I needed to do and I set about doing it in the most practical way possible.

So I tried to kill myself. I got back from school before either of my parents were home. I walked to a pharmacy and bought a bottle of Benadryl. I went back home, took an extra large but not sickness-inducing dose, and sat to sleep with the bag over my head and my hand holding it open. I don’t remember what the bag looked like or how I had it arranged. The memory of my room, my bed, and the contraption feels jumbled and unreal, like looking at an Escher painting.

I slept for close to 10 hours. I woke up and the bag was wrinkled up far over my head. I had pushed it off in my sleep. I was still heavily affected by the Benadryl. I walked downstairs and my mom was in the recliner. I laid down on the couch and went to sleep again, only waking up at 2 a.m. when my dad came home.

I can see snapshots of the suicide attempt so clearly, I can remember how nervous I felt when I bought the Benadryl. I can remember standing in front of the aisle, checking multiple pill bottles and calculating what I needed. I remember taking what must have been 15 minutes decide. I was very nervous approaching the checkout. Surely they know I’m just a kid and I’m obviously buying this to kill myself.

Some memories were not clear. I don’t remember what the bag look and felt like. I remember very clearly waking up, confused, and finding the bag above me. I don’t remember my emotions when I fell asleep or woke up. I don’t think I felt relief. I think it was mild disappointment that my subconscious brain had messed my plan up.

I had thought of making a suicide note. It was a standard discussion point on the forums I read, and I’ve always been a person of process. I vaguely recall starting something written on the computer, but at that point I did not even know why I was doing it myself. I just knew it was the only escape. I puzzled over it a bit, writing a sentence or two. People online often had some ultimatum, they were doing it because of some thing tangible. I was just sad? I carefully deleted the file, a lesson I learned from being caught with porn.

My memories from around this time don’t have any time frame or order in them.  I may have tried the exit bag one more time at some point, but I’m not sure. The fragments I remember exist like they were carved from those moments of my life and stored in a dusty book in the back of my mind. I don’t have any memory of my self from that time, what I looked like or what my introspective thoughts were. I can’t recall the classes, what I learned, or who my friends were. I feel like I should know these things and that I may have repressed them.

One time during some kind of PE class, I lingered outside while the rest of the group was inside in the gym. The campus had a large stadium with a high railing. I stood there, thinking about hanging myself from it. I fully knew hanging wasn’t a pleasant way to die. I was starting to realize now that since I’m going to be dead, it didn’t really matter if there was some suffering. I also changed my risk stance, and decided I could probably get away with stuff like climbing to the stadium as long as no one saw me. I remember consciously choosing to ignore the normal “what if” when planning, like what if I get caught, what if it hurts? I eventually went in to PE class and decided to think on it more. I would need to plan that better.

Getting helped

Some time after my first suicide attempt, I was brought to a therapist. I don’t know why. I don’t think I asked for one. My mom may have suggested it to me. My parents to this day do not know about the suicide attempts. They probably thought I had angst or raging hormones. I had occasional emotional outbursts of sadness and anger directed at my parents, but I remember nothing more than that.

I got an intake questionnaire for the psychologist. It had the question, have you ever had suicidal thoughts? For the first time, I realized someone might be able to help me and understand me. This is a standard thing they put on the form, so logically it’s something that can be treated. Before I did not think there was an alternative to suicide, but maybe this could change something. It would be safer as I knew a bit about patient-client confidentiality.

I remember the paper went in a manila envelope and I was so obsessed that it would close tight, that my parents wouldn’t read it, that one of the brads fell off making it less secure. I stopped thinking about committing suicide, although I still wanted to stop existing.

I had an intro appointment. The psychologist was a man and I remember nothing except the waiting room and the bookshelves of toys and books in his office. I didn’t open up in person. But he had the form with my response and my depression was pretty obvious. My parents went in after me and when they came out, they were very serious. I was surprisingly hopeful.

Months later, the therapy had done absolutely nothing for me. My avoidant attachment style meant I was too afraid of any kind of emotional intimacy, especially with men. I wasn’t introspective enough to identify what was wrong with myself. I had little experience understanding strong emotions, just noise. There was sadness, I don’t know where it came from, and I want it to stop.

I got referred to a psychiatrist. He gave me a short discussion to confirm that “yep, he’s sad all right” and sent me home with a Zoloft prescription. A month later, I was back to normal. 6 months later I was off the prescription. The blank emotions were replaced with something else that started as static and was overall “brighter” or “happier” than before. I could immediately tell that my brain was different, but it was hard to figure out how.

A self epoch

I had not been very introspective up to that point, so I had few memories of how “I” used to be. I had the strongest feeling that the Zoloft had changed how my mind worked but no proof. Perhaps the static actually started then, and I can’t remember clearly what I was like before. Perhaps I always felt like this, and I was so depressed that getting back to normal was so overwhelming as to seem brand new. Maybe I just can’t remember and I was introspective.

When I took the 30th Zoloft pill I remember thinking “huh, I feel happy now.” The feeling I get when I remember that day feels like my first real memory. It felt like I had been swimming underwater my whole life and my head had finally breached the surface to take its first breath. This moment, standing in the kitchen and looking at the prescription bottle, is the epoch of my self.

Usually at transitions in life and changes of personality, preferences, and beliefs I can identify myself as the same self from before, just different. In this case, my present day ego does not feel continuous with the person that grew up in my body, got depressed, and ended up going to that psychiatrist. I know, logically, I am the same entity now as I was before that time. I have memories of times before that. The feeling of discontinuity is just so strong.

Maybe it’s the 2-year gap of memories. All memories from before that time are uncertain, like I can’t trust that they actually happened. When I try to think, “when was that memory?” things don’t really make sense. The memories seem to contradict each other when I place them in order.

Maybe the depression had masked the changes in my mind during puberty, and the Zoloft worked so stupid fast that I was given a 30-day launch into adolescence. In truth I think it was the combination of these.

The various starts of my life

This epoch certainly marked the emotional start to my life. The physical start is well-defined of course, and I guess the start of my ego is still up for debate. At least, when I say “I” about events after this point, it feels like I’m talking about myself and not someone else. The static soon begins to fade and I was beginning to feel emotions. Mostly I was just happy. You know, cause of the Zoloft.

From that point on, my memories feel contiguous. I can firmly place memories on a timeline. I can recall feelings from memories too. My choices make sense in the context of my former self.

Some time in eighth grade I remember thinking that something was different in my mind, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. The lack of introspection from before my depression meant I had no reference point for what my mind should be. I just had the vague feeling that Zoloft changed me. I think this is my first memory of introspection. It’s also significant because this is one of the earliest memories that easily fits in a timeline.

[This post is titled “a brief history of me”. In truth, it’s because the history of me is different from the history of “I”. The next post will discuss the history of “I”.]

[youdontknowaboutthis]

Sonder

My Lyft driver pulled into the curve of the tunnel entrance

"I fill up on gas about 3 times a week, track it all-"

I looked out at a skinny, tall red building in Downtown Boston

I wondered what it was like to live there

Coming home every day to this upper floor apartment

The reliet of being home after a long day of work perhaps

To open that sliding screen door into the rickety wooden balcony

To watch the daily routine of the traffic police opening and closing lanes

To look out at the endless steam of cars flowing from the airport

To them I was an imperceptible dot in a sea of millions

"-it works out, I put all the miles in my app to write them off"

"Nice" I politely replied as we entered the tunnel and the house disappeared

Another dot, gone as fast as it appeared

[youdontknowaboutthis]

It all started when I was born

I want to talk about this, but I don’t really know how to talk about it. So I’ll start here.

Growing up I experienced emotional neglect. My brother died when I was a toddler. My mother was depressed for years after this and wasn’t as emotionally available as she could have been. My father had anger problems stemming from neglect by his father.

While my parents loved me and cared for me, they weren’t emotionally available, at all. This messed up my emotional development. I learned to be self-sufficient to a fault. This was also exacerbated by some of my parent’s personality characteristics, especially with regards to money.

I didn’t learn how to show emotions, and as a result I didn’t know how to really feel emotions: I had issues with depression in middle school because I couldn’t “feel” emotions deeply and was missing a key component of life. One night I just laid in bed crying while my mom sat near me. I didn’t know why I was crying, and I didn’t know how to communicate this. I tried to kill myself (unsuccessfully, of course).

I was taken to a counselor, didn’t really help. I wasn’t self-aware myself to know what was going on and the counselor must have missed it. Went to psychiatrist next who prescribed Zoloft. Within a month, the emptiness ached less and I felt happy! Problem solved, right?

Eventually I stopped taking Zoloft. I continued on, not really feeling emotions but being generally happy. Really I felt “too” happy at times, which I always thought was lasting effects from the medicine.

In 8th grade, I switched to public school. I made friends fairly quickly and was comfortable there. Puberty was coming though. My emotions had been a pot on simmer, barely murmuring the occasional bit of steam. Then, sitting there in my science class taking a test, a switch was flipped.

There was a girl in my class, HW, who was extremely ditsy and annoying. She wasn’t particularly attractive or smart. There was no reason for me to be attracted to her.

And yet, sitting there taking a test, the pot began to boil. I was suddenly faced with the most powerful emotion I had ever felt in my life - love? infatuation? attraction? - I couldn’t name it, as I’d never felt it before.

I loved science class, and consistently made A’s in every assignment. That test I got a 72, if I remember. I recognized instantly that there was no logical reason for me to be attracted to her and that this was some kind of emotion beyond my control due to puberty.

I accepted that it was just a temporary feeling and knew I didn’t have to and shouldn’t act on it. I did the cute stuff, writing her name over and over in my journal, etc. I had fun with a powerful emotion outside of my control, just enjoying the ride.

Eventually it faded. I moved on to high school. One of my friends from middle school, DL, went to the same high school. She was a good friend and we got closer over the semester. Eventually, infatuation developed. I slipped her a note in geometry with a play on “Roses are red,” ending with “I love you.” Again, didn’t know what these emotions were, let alone how to label them - everyone else calls it love, this must be it?

Lucky me, the feeling was mutual. If the pot was boiling before, it had now gotten so intense that all rules of metaphor were dissolved and it was simply a flamethrower.

To reiterate how I felt: HOLY FUCK

This was the most intense feeling I had ever experienced. It was gushing out of me and I couldn’t control it. Here is where the neglect made things difficult - I didn’t know how to show or handle emotions. I didn’t know how to talk about my feelings. I never talked about my feelings.

The feelings were so overwhelming that I couldn’t keep it all repressed. I wrote poems. I made art. I journaled. I did everything but talk about it, because I had to be ruggedly self-sufficient, and sharing emotions makes you vulnerable. Sharing a little art could help me express myself without talking.

Of course, I barely talked about these feelings with DL, and what was talked about wasn’t at a deep level. As can be expected from someone so emotionally immature, the relationship lasted 6 months (to the day, I think?). She ended it, of course. I was crushed, the flamethrower was now a melted pile of slag.

Other relationships ensued and failed for roughly the same reasons as I learned The Hard Way about love, communication, emotions, and how to mix them (or, simply, learned the consequences of not mixing them).

What I recently learned was the imprint this relationship would have on me to this day and beyond.

[youdontknowaboutthis]

Gone

A late flight

Onward to the next city

The clouds pierced

A sunset appears

Orange and red and blue

Then the sky gives way to black

The only light left from the ground

Empty baseball fields

Cars on lonely paths

Visible for seconds then gone

"Prepare for landing"

The cabin lights come on

My eyes adjust

The lights on the ground fade

Now they really are

Gone