Cosmic Residue

There are places you return to not because they still fit, but because you remember a time when they did. And that memory is patient. It doesn't remind you of the weight you carried there, or the version of yourself you had to shrink into. It just shows you the light from a certain afternoon, or the way something once felt like enough. And that's all it takes. The hard part isn't leaving. You already proved you could do that. The hard part is staying gone when everything familiar starts to feel like a sign. But familiar was never the same thing as good for you. You knew certain people the way you know an old ache... deeply, without thinking, in a way that lived in your body before it reached your mind. That kind of knowing can feel like home.  It isn't always. Some endings don't ask to be revisited. They just sit quietly in the past, waiting to see if you've finally learned to let the distance do its work. And maybe the most honest thing you can do is admit ...