I made the mistake a couple months ago of giving one of my essays too evocative a title. I wrote something about the endless Jeffrey Epstein talk and the ways we turn the abuse of girls into entertainment in a piece I called “Nonstop Creepiness.”

It’s no longer on any of my blogs, even though I think it stands up pretty well over time, I don’t regret anything in the essay (and as I’ve been reminded recently, I exist in a constant cycle of regret and revisitation as far as my writing is concerned.)

But the thing is, that story keeps getting pinged by someone (most often out of a Microsoft node in San Antonio) and it gnaws at me each time I see it. Is someone expressing support for the story and wishes it to return? Or, what’s really bothering me, is someone pinging the title to signal to me that I’m being creepy about something?

Acting in a non-creepy manner is important to me, so I get a small pang of fear every time I see that title … what have I done now? How can I fix this?

Anyway, if there’s someone out there paying attention to my work who has the answer and can put my mind at ease, find a way to tell me I’m not being creepy, I’d appreciate it.

As my writing has reflected recently, I’m dealing with a lot right now. The Charlie Kirk situation and the massive, coordinated campaign around it, have affected me, and I have daily fears about the safety of my family. I desperately wish for the country to move on, find another obsession. If Trump wants to make NFL kickoffs a subject of national debate, by all means, let him.

But I’m also dealing with my younger brother beginning kidney dialysis, there being a number of snafus along the way (he was in the hospital yesterday), and the increasing knowledge that my 87 year old mother is not up to managing the situation.

I had a nice break from all of this yesterday when I went to a high school poetry reading. One of my sons is in an intensive creative writing program — and he was chosen to lead off the showcase and perform the introductions.

He had a unique piece to show off. He wrote a sonnet, but then decided to mangle the paper it was written on and create a sculpture that looked like a crane, then he wrote another poem to explain the sculpture. It was very creative, but the only downside is that the book accompanying the performance didn’t include his text, only a picture of the crane.

I had two thoughts while listening to his poem. First, his style is remarkably similar to mine, which is mysterious to me. I don’t write like anyone else in my family, this doesn’t seem like an inherited trait. And he hasn’t read any of my stuff either, so how could he be influenced by me?

The second was a line in the poem … tossed off casually in the middle … where he expressed a wish to be desired like the subjects of all the sonnets he’s read. That one landed hard, I know that feeling well.

In fact, I think you could make a good case that my love language is a desire for someone to express love for me the same way that I express it. So I felt kinship with my son, but at the same time, I almost wanted to tell him … I hate to pass on the bad news, but this yearning will never go away.

Of all the things I could pass on to my children, my attachment to the kind of feelings expressed in a Lana Del Rey or Adrianne Lenker song would not be at the top of my list. That sensitivity comes at a high cost, and building up the resilience to be able to keep feeling while not letting it tear you up inside takes years and heartbreaks to develop.

As for me, I’m just happy at this time to have Montaigne. He reassures me that moderation at a time of great discord is the only rational path, that wars are never really worth fighting, that we can find peace in solitude, but also need the connections of friendship to keep going.