TutuLore

There are people who leave but don’t fully go. They stay somewhere just behind your thoughts, showing up in the middle of ordinary days without warning or invitation.

I don’t remember when I stopped being comfortable with silence. It didn’t happen all at once. It was gradual, like most things that change you without asking permission.

He doesn’t talk about it much. But if you sat with him long enough, in the right kind of quiet, he’d probably tell you there are things he wishes he could go back and do differently. Not everything. Just enough.

I grew up in an era where everyone could look happy. That doesn’t mean everyone was. But the technology had gotten good enough that the difference wasn’t always visible.

Everyone around him seemed to be moving toward something. A promotion, a wedding, a business, a plan. He wasn’t standing still exactly. He just hadn’t figured out yet what he was moving toward.