TAB

The Diagnosis

You have 47 tabs open right now. You know this because you glanced at the top of your browser and lost count somewhere in the mid-thirties, the way one loses count of stars or of thoughts. Each tab is a previous version of you who was going to do something. One of them was going to make banana bread. One of them was going to book the flight. One of them was going to read the article, remember who sent it, and reply with something thoughtful. None of these things have happened. All of those people are still waiting, in those tabs, with little loading icons.

Closing a tab means admitting you're not going to do the thing. You're not ready to admit that. You're holding on to every single intention as if they were genuine plans, not just moments of curiosity that spiraled into a browser action. "I'll come back to it" is the lie you tell yourself 47 times a day, one per tab. Your laptop is warm. Your other laptop is warm. Your phone has 61 tabs open in Safari. They are all you, waiting for you to catch up.

You started reading this paragraph because you meant to. You began a sentence twelve minutes ago and you genuinely do not know if it's still the same sentence. The thought left. The thought is in another tab somewhere. You'll find it. You won't, but you'll believe you will, and that belief is the quiet engine that keeps all the tabs open. You are not a distracted person. You are a person whose interest is so total and so constant that nothing ever gets to finish resolving. Attention like yours — it's a form of love, just an unusable one.