To Catch A Glimpse

I saw you yesterday. I did. After I honestly don’t remember how long I saw you. I saw the me I used to be.
It happened so fast, a flash in the bathroom mirror. But it was unmistakable, the glint in the eye, the smirk. I only caught a glimpse of you, but I instantly recognized you. I would know you anywhere. After all, I used to be you.

Seeing you initially made me so excited. It was like a confirmation I’d been waiting for. You’re still in here. Somewhere I’m still in here.
It instantly reminded me of how it felt to be you, to have that constant thrum inside me, driving me. That feeling of purpose has become so distant. I can remember the feeling of energy and excitement welling up inside me. It was like this outpouring of pure electricity. I felt alive.
I’d trade for it back in a second. Trade this feeling of suffocation. Trade scrabbling in the dirt of my thought processes, trying and failing to parse the simplest of small talk. Trade the emptiness and the pit where that electricity once pooled inside me. It’s mostly cold and numb now.

But the longer I’ve thought about it the excitement has been replaced with hesitation. Could I actually bring you back? Is that possible? Having watched all this time from whatever corner of my brain you’ve been holed up in, would you even want to come back?

I can’t answer that. I’m not even sure it’s a matter of going back. A person can only ever really go forward in this life, regardless of how much it might feel differently. Even when we feel stuck, stunted by life’s storms that rage, continuously it seems. We’re moving even then. In a boat of our own making, though not always our choosing, we’re moving.

If it turns out that I’ve moved too far from you, or you just decide
to stay in your safe little nook, it’s alright. You stay safe and watch out for me. I’ll go on and become someone new, maybe dozens of someone’s before all is said and done. I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine because I’ve been you and once upon a time you thought we could be anything.