An Advice Column I Write to Myself, Letter Nine— Q: Dear Kelly, Why All of this Missing?

Dear Kelly,

I have been with Nic for almost five years now. I have been happy. Like, genuinely happy. I have laughed more in these last five years than I probably had in the sum of all the years before. I am happy. (I mean, actually right now, I’m in a pretty hard period, but I’m talking overall.) But HOT SHIT DAMN — do I miss life before him. All you have to do is listen to me talk and you will hear it. I constantly make references to my past. To the cities where I lived without…