Reflections

I had pictured the date so often it became its own constellation.
Every point had a place.
Every line was already joined.

Then today looked different.
One point sat beyond the line I had drawn.
For a moment I thought the stars had missed.

I kept watching.

Then the pattern widened.
The misplaced point found its line.
Everything fell into place.

What seemed late for the beginning was right for everything after it.

Nothing had fallen out of place.
The sky was simply larger than my drawing.

Nobody can tell you the thing you want is off the table.
Not with any authority. They can tell you it's unlikely and they'd probably be right.

Unlikely is not the same as closed.

We treat the two as the same word.
We hear low odds and file the whole thing away as settled, then go looking for something more sensible to want.

But the day you stopped believing it was possible, nothing actually changed outside you.
The door didn't lock. You stopped trying the handle.

That's the interesting part of being alive.
Not knowing how it turns out. Waking up somewhere ordinary with the whole thing still open.

Nobody closed the door.
Go and try the handle.

Something new arrives and you feel it.

The pull. The permission you didn't know you were looking for.

The gym starts to feel like interruption.
The early night like missed hours.
The walk like something you don't have time for anymore.

So you throw it all away.

Not in one go.
An hour less sleep. A session cut short.
The walk you'll do tomorrow.

Each one feels like nothing.
The accumulation is everything.

Every project ends.
This one will too.

When it does, what are you left with?

The camera saw you pack it away.
The sketchbook felt the drawer close.
Neither one asked why.

Months pass. Maybe longer.

We tell ourselves we've been too busy.
That passions are indulgent when there's rent to pay and inboxes to clear.

So you leave them. For later. For when things settle.

Things don't settle.
The camera stays in the bag. The sketchbook stays in the drawer.

They're not tracking how long it's been.
They're not waiting for an apology.

The busy doesn't end.
They weren't tracking your absence.
Open the drawer.

Wedge-tailed eagle circling overhead.
Perfect light. Close enough to see the feathers.

Camera's at home.

Currawong lands in the yard.
Right there on the fence. Unafraid.

Camera's charging.

Jumping spider on the dashboard.
Posing like it knows.

Camera's in the other bag.

But yesterday?
Walked around for three hours fully geared.
Memory card empty.

It's like they know.

The moment you're ready they vanish.
The moment you're not they perform.

Maybe the universe runs on Murphy's Photographic Law.
Perfect subjects only appear when you can't prove they existed.

Or maybe trying to capture the moment is what repels it.

You write something plain.
It says exactly what it means.

Then the edit begins.
A fancier word here. A softer phrase there.
By the third pass it sounds impressive.

And hollow.

Ornament is armour.
We dress up words not to clarify but to cushion.
To leave somewhere to hide if the reader pushes back.

The plain version didn't need saving.
You just didn't trust it.

The sky is changing.
You notice through the window. A wash of gold bleeding into pink.

You're mid-task. Mid-thought. Mid-something that feels important.

But sunsets don't reschedule.
They don't pause while you finish the paragraph.
They don't hold while you send one more message.

Five minutes. That's all it asks.
Five minutes that everything else can spare.

We treat the sky like it'll wait.
Like there's a version of later where the colours are still there.

There isn't.

You can finish the thing after.
You can't watch the sunset after.

Something breaks.

A glass. A plan. A small thing you were holding too tightly.

The instinct is to feel bad.
To wish you'd been more careful.

But there's another way to see it.

You have a limited reserve of concern.

A finite pool of energy for guarding and worrying and trying to keep things intact.

Every time you spend that energy protecting something small, there's less for what actually matters.

The glass was going to shatter eventually.
The plan was already fragile.

Good.

Let the small things break without grief.
Save your concern for what deserves it.

Life hands us a small stack of pages.
We turn one each day. They don’t come back.

So use them wisely.
Not on someone else’s script.
Not on the life you think you should want.

Follow what feels steady in your chest.
The quiet pull.
The small sparks that keep returning no matter how often you ignore them.

Your pages are limited.
Choose the ones that belong to you.

Plans shift. A meeting runs long. A message changes the day. A moment outside your control bends the whole path.

The first reaction is tightness. That small flare of frustration when life doesn’t follow the map you drew this morning.

But rivers don’t fight the banks. They take the turn. They keep moving. They find another way through.

You can too.