" The Paradox: how do you lose something you never had?
The answer: There was another way to have. A transparent stretch of space between you. To love from a distance, through that space, more deeply, more colourfully, so it can be seen from faraway like a flag. Eventually the spave itself fills you. The air entering your body and replacing your blood, running through you. The halfßpleasant feeling of not being here. "

― Katie Roiphe , Still She Haunts Me