I shouldn’t be looking this up again.
That’s the first thing I thought tonight.
And yet here I am.
Again.
I don’t even know what I was looking for anymore.
I think it started with one article.
Then another.
Then somebody’s experience.
Then a forum thread.
Then photographs.
Then comments.
And now it’s two in the morning.
I’m embarrassed to write that.
Because it doesn’t sound important.
It’s not like I’m actually doing anything.
I’m just reading.
Just watching.
Just curious.
That’s what I keep telling myself.
Curious.
But I’m starting to suspect that if it were only curiosity, I would have closed everything hours ago.
There’s something bothering me.
Not the content.
My reaction to it.
The way I keep coming back.
The ease with which I come back.
Today I caught myself thinking about it at the grocery store.
For no reason.
I was standing in line.
Looking at a shelf.
And suddenly it was there.
An image.
A sentence.
A scene I had read last night.
Nothing explicit.
Nothing dramatic.
But it stayed with me.
Like a song that refuses to leave your head.
I came home feeling ridiculous.
Because I’m an adult.
Because I have more important things to think about.
Because this should occupy a much smaller space inside my mind.
And yet…
I opened the browser again.
The strange part is that the more I read, the less I understand what’s happening to me.
I thought I was looking for answers.
Instead I keep finding more questions.
I don’t understand why certain things make my pulse speed up.
I don’t understand why some descriptions leave this uncomfortable warmth in my chest.
I don’t understand why I close a tab and reopen it ten minutes later.
That’s the part that embarrasses me.
Not the desire.
The repetition.
Last night I promised myself I would stop reading about this for a few days.
I remember it clearly.
I even felt relieved when I closed everything.
As if I had taken control back.
Today I opened my history to find a page I had sworn I wouldn’t visit again.
Not because I needed it.
Because I wanted to check something.
I don’t know what.
And that’s exactly what worries me.
I’m starting to recognize a feeling.
It doesn’t quite feel like arousal.
Not yet.
It’s something before that.
A small current.
An expectation.
The feeling that something is waiting for me behind the next article.
The next story.
The next explanation.
And every time I get there, it isn’t what I thought it would be.
So I keep looking.
I tell myself it’s research.
Learning.
Understanding.
But every day it becomes a little harder to believe myself.
Sometimes I close the laptop and feel completely normal.
Other times I realize I’m still thinking about it.
While cooking.
While working.
While trying to fall asleep.
The strangest part is that it doesn’t feel like I’m discovering something.
It feels like I’m remembering something.
As if I arrived late to a conversation that started without me.
As if some part of my mind already knows the way and I’m trying to catch up.
I don’t know if that makes any sense.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll be embarrassed to read this.
I probably will.
Actually, I hope I am.
Because the alternative would mean admitting that tonight I searched again.
And that while I’m writing this, I’m still thinking about a tab I left open.
I’m not going to open it.
That’s what I keep telling myself.
I’m going to close the computer.
I’m going to sleep.
I’m going to stop thinking about it.
I just want to check one thing first.
I have to move my neck I am not moving it…
