Fellchaser
"a long-forgotten mistake from your past that could reappear at any time and rip your life apart, like a boomerang you tossed away years ago that’s only just now looping back around, which you’d have no idea how to handle because you have no idea what it is."
Meraki
"to do something with soul, creativity, or love; to put something of yourself into your work"
Ghough
"a hollow place in your psyche that can never be filled; a bottomless hunger for more food, more praise, more attention, more affection, more joy, more sex, more money, more hours of sunshine, more years of your life; a state of panic that everything good will be taken from you too early, which makes you want to swallow the world before it ends up swallowing you."
Volander
"the ethereal feeling of looking down at the world through an airplane window, able to catch a glimpse of far-flung places you’d never see in person, free to let your mind wander, trying to imagine what they must feel like down on the ground—the closest you’ll ever get to an objective point of view."
Exulansis
"the tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it—whether through envy or pity or mere foreignness—which allows it to drift away from the rest of your story, until it feels out of place, almost mythical, wandering restlessly in the fog, no longer even looking for a place to land."
Mahpiohanzia
"the frustration of being unable to fly, unable to stretch out your arms and vault into the air, having finally shrugged off the burden of your own weight, which you’ve been carrying your entire life without a second thought."
Slipfast
"longing to disappear completely; to melt into a crowd and become invisible, so you can take in the world without having to take part in it—free to wander through conversations without ever leaving footprints, free to dive deep into things without worrying about making a splash."
Licotic
"anxiously excited to introduce a friend to something you think is amazing—a classic album, a favorite restaurant, a TV show they’re lucky enough to watch for the very first time—which prompts you to continually poll their face waiting for the inevitable rush of awe, only to cringe when you discover all the work’s flaws shining through for the very first time."
Énouement
"the bittersweetness of having arrived here in the future, finally learning the answers to how things turned out but being unable to tell your past self."
Vaucasy
"the fear that you’re little more than a product of your circumstances, that for all the thought you put into shaping your beliefs and behaviors and relationships, you’re essentially a dog being trained by whatever stimuli you happen to encounter—reflexively drawn to whoever gives you reliable hits of pleasure, skeptical of ideas that make you feel powerless."