I recently stumbled upon digital medical files from the ICU hospitalization that this entry refers to, and as I read through them, I was struck by how much of that time still eludes me—fragmented and disorienting. The files offer a window into a deeply complex period of emotional trauma, one that I’ve only been able to piece together in bits and pieces, scattered through a haze of broken memories and confusion. At first, I was frozen in place, overwhelmed by the rawness of what I was reading, unsure of how to process the details that were once just echoes in my mind.

Thankful for the small things, the tiny things, the in-between things—the way the wind sneaks through the cracks in the morning, whispers of coffee steam curling like ghostly lullabies, the scuff of a shoe on pavement, the hush of a friend’s voice saying I hear you. The weight of a book in your hands, the rhythm of a song that rattles your bones just right, headlights stretching long down an empty road.

I have loved stars that collapsed into themselves. People who once burned with the kind of brilliance that made you believe in something bigger—something divine. They carried light in their hands, in their words, in the way they saw the world with wild, unfiltered wonder. But like Icarus, like Lucifer, like every fallen thing that ever thought itself untouchable, they flew too high, reached too far, believed themselves invincible.

The best is not behind you. The best is not in the hands you have already let go of, in the love that has already left, in the dreams that have already withered. The best is ahead, waiting for you to stop gripping the bones of something long dead.

Bare

I stand without cover,

no shine, no mask.

Just skin,

lined and soft,

telling stories I didn’t ask to write.

Resilience. That’s the word that sticks with me tonight. We’re capable of so much more than we give ourselves credit for. I’ve always known that, but tonight, it feels real. It feels close.

I’m realizing now that the story I’ve been aching to tell all these years isn’t just mine. It’s the stories of all the people I’ve met, their lives entwined with mine, their histories bleeding into the fabric of my own.

The kind of memory that cuts you down, not gently, but with the sharp edge of something you thought you’d left behind.

Notes: Reference notes provide information about works that have been paraphrased or directly cited in a text.