About a month ago, after a conversation at a bus stop, I was reminded of a particular two-day stretch in February. Back then, there were a few things I had wanted to do but never quite managed. Two weeks after that conversation, I found myself intentionally returning to the same place I had been on those days. This time, I did the things I had left undone, and added a few new ones too.
But what I felt wasn’t what I had expected. I thought I would experience the emotions I had imagined months ago. Instead, the feelings were different. Softer. Almost confusing at first of how soft yet familiar they were. So much of life has shifted, it made sense that what I felt would be different.
That’s the thing about revisiting places or moments, or redoing that specific two-day stretch, for that matter. What was once unfinished or undone never waits for us in the way we expect. Once a moment has passed, we don’t receive exactly what we had imagined back then. Instead, we’re given something else. Something that belongs more to who we are right now, and now, and now.
My therapist would go on to describe me as someone who had arrived at being playful during that two-day stretch, and said she liked this version of me. I like this version too. The word playful reminded me of what my tarot reader had remarked recently, that I’m meant to be playful and to have fun.
Not long after, I found myself back in a place I hadn’t visited in more than a year. At first, I thought I wanted to put into words the gratitude I carried for the space that was held, not only in recent months but over many years. Yet by the end of that evening, the words I had planned to say no longer felt necessary. They had already been spoken, in some form, on a few occasions over the years.
In a way, the eventual shutting of the place also felt symbolic. Truthfully, I had already closed the doors within, a long time ago.
In recent therapy sessions, I shared with my therapist that when I revisit certain thoughts or memories, what follows is an incredible pink hue. Earlier enactments in therapy saw curtains of white light shining through, encircling me against traumatic people and events. These images would surface whenever I returned to those memories. Now, those curtains of light appear as pink.
The colour pink reminds me of a voice message pressed onto a pink vinyl I received not long ago, words that landed because they mirrored so closely the way this year has been unfolding for me after I closed the door.
“Instead, you live, you move, you breathe your way into a rhythm that makes you forget the asking altogether. And I think that’s what it means to be here. ‘Cause there is no moment past or future that’s worth living in, either in pain and regret, yearning, especially if it’s at the expense of this one, the present one. The one that’s here now, and now, and now.”
I should have protected my peace back then. Instead of shutting off sensitivity. Instead of cheapening the inner life. Instead of turning away from becoming. But surely, I wouldn’t have arrived at this rhythm I have now, and now, and now, without all that. Surely it would be a different rhythm, for better or for worse. But this one feels like a good, natural rhythm.
This wasn’t the plan, and yet.
It had to be felt and lived through. The asking in earlier months of this year has become what is now asked of me to transmute. The most powerful act, which began earlier this year, was simply to keep becoming. That gave rise to the internal message that surfaced back in March “Don’t allow anyone else, or anything else, to have the power to deny me of my contentment, happiness, and well-being.”
The shift in colours, from white to pink, reminded me of a passage from the Book of Hours.
“The longer you are with us, the brighter you shine,
like flame turned to ruby,
like flame turned to wine.”