Bandwidth.
Not how much either of us felt. How much either of us had room for — the width of what could be said yes to without it costing something. Two ranges, drawn month by month, and what each of us actually did inside them.
Every commitment sits somewhere on one axis, from −100 to +100. Near zero, the small things — answering a text the same day. Out at the far end, the heavy ones — the same house, the trip booked three months out. Below zero are the protective moves: needing space, going quiet, declining to make a plan at all.
A person's bandwidth is the stretch of that axis they could live inside at the time — a floor and a ceiling. It's drawn as a shaded band. Their actions are what they actually reached for that month, drawn as a line.
The weight is what a thing costs to hold, not what it's worth. Book club as an idea is a light thing. Book club at seven every Tuesday is a much heavier one — same activity, different weight. That distinction is the whole point of the axis.
The interesting part was never a line's height. It was a line against the other person's band — whether what one of us reached for still fit inside what the other had room to hold.
Ryan's line left Erin's band in March.
Both bands started narrow. Hers much narrower than his — and his was already well under what an unpressured person carries.
The faint dotted rules at ±60 mark roughly what someone carries when nothing is pressing on them. Neither band starts anywhere near it.
Pick a thing. See who had room for it, and when.
Each item has a weight. Choose one and it draws itself across the chart — the months it fell inside a band are the months that thing was actually available.
Nothing here is a grade. A narrow band isn't a failing of the person carrying it — it's a fact about the weight they were already under. The chart only says what the room was. It doesn't say whose fault the walls were.