She is at her desk at eleven at night and she is still working.
I can see her. I can see the desk and the lamp and the particular hunch of a woman who has been at a screen for too long and knows it and has decided that the knowing is not sufficient reason to stop, that there is still more to do, that the more-to-do is never actually done and if she waits for it to be done she will never stop and if she never stops she will eventually be stopped in a way that is not her choice, which is in fact exactly what will happen, but she does not know that yet and I am not sure knowing it would change anything.
What would I tell her.
Not to work less. She will not work less, the work is part of who she is, the work is the love made practical, and I would not take that from her even if I could. Not that it will be fine in the end, because fine is not the right word for what the end looked like, the ending was hard and long and more costly than she can currently imagine, and minimizing that in advance would be a kind of lie.
I would tell her to sleep more.
I would tell her that the body is keeping a record and the record will be presented eventually and she should invest in the body now the way she invests in everything else, with attention and care and the understanding that the return on investment is not immediate but is real. I would tell her to call the friend more often, to not save the long conversations for when she has time, because she will not have time until she is fifty and by then the friendship will have needed tending for a decade and will still be there but will require re-learning.
I would tell her she is already enough.
I would say it plainly, without scaffolding, the way you say something to someone who you know will argue with it. I would say: the bar you are trying to clear is not a real bar. The real bar was cleared years ago. What you are jumping now is air. I know you cannot feel that yet. I know the air looks exactly like a bar. But it is air and you are spending yourself on it and the spending has a cost.
Go to bed. The work will still be there in the morning. You will be there in the morning too, and the you that is rested is worth more to every person who needs you than the you at eleven at night, diminished, proving something to no one but yourself.
Go to bed. I love you. Go to bed.
