Looking Back

Tonight, I feel like a ghost

haunting my own life.

Not from the past—

but from somewhere ahead.

As if an older version of my soul

has quietly slipped into this moment,

sat beside me in this chair,

and whispered,

“Look around.”

Look at these walls.

This little condo.

This exact seat.

Your age.

Your mother’s laughter down the hall.

Your husband’s familiar presence.

Your children—

still this young,

still becoming.

One day,

none of this will exist

quite like this again.

And suddenly,

the ordinary

becomes sacred.

I find myself counting invisible things:

the years I’ve walked my path,

the circles I’ve stood within,

the words I’ve memorized,

the hands I’ve held in trust,

the quiet bonds that shaped me

behind closed doors.

Even the storms—

the whispers,

the drama,

the names that ripple through our community—

feel like threads

in a tapestry

I don’t yet know how to read.

My heart keeps asking

what waits beyond the horizon.

What if I arrive

where I’ve spent years longing to be…

and I don’t belong?

What if the dream

doesn’t fit

the life?

What if the place I imagined

becomes a place

I merely endure?

The questions echo

like footsteps

through an empty temple.

Yet beneath them

is something softer.

Not fear.

Love.

Because I realize

I am already living

a memory.

This night.

This breath.

This version of me.

Perhaps the woman who is watching me

from years ahead

isn’t mourning what was lost.

Perhaps she’s simply remembering

how beautiful it was

to stand on the threshold,

terrified and hopeful,

before the next chapter

turned its first page.

****state of liminality (being on a threshold between what was and what is next).