The Way Certain Things Stay With You
It always starts the same way: I catch myself remembering something I didn’t mean to remember. A voice, a laugh, the color of the light coming through an old curtain in an apartment I haven’t seen in years. I don’t go looking for these moments—they find me.
There’s one memory in particular that returns more often than the others. It’s late autumn, the air is dry, and we’re walking down a narrow street in a city I didn’t grow up in. You’re talking about something—I wish I could say I remember what—but I was only half-listening. Not because I didn’t care, but because I was so focused on the way your breath looked in the cold, how it disappeared after just a second. I remember thinking, this is probably a moment I’ll want back someday.
And of course, now I do.
What nobody tells you
…