Almost, enough

Recommended song for reading: A Long Walk by Jill Scott

Lately, I’ve been struggling to sit down and write. In all honesty, I have to admit, I haven’t been thinking much at all. My mind feels settled in a quiet, neutral kind of acceptance state. I am almost content. There’s nothing to complain about, nor do I feel the need to.

After a month of unending phone calls, I got the job I wanted. I have a routine, I feel at home, and my closest friends are around me. I read enough, I eat and drink enough, and I even like someone—just enough. Nothing in excess, yet nothing is missing.

Don’t get me wrong—it’s not all rainbows. When I step back and consider it all, I notice a small sadness lingering—not excessive, not disruptive, but present- just there. A kind of blank space within me.

There is something ultimately absurd about perfect equilibrium (if it ever existed). I once longed for stability, believing it would grant me relief, but now that I somehow and somewhat have it, I wonder if I’ve mistaken balance for stillness. In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus writes about the meaningless repetitions of life—the idea that we push our stones up a hill only for them to roll back down. But what if the stone finally stopped rolling? What if it simply sat there, unmoving?

Perhaps struggle gave me purpose, and without it, I am just existing. Neither euphoric nor miserable—just here.

Last night, I went out with this someone. We had spent time together once, long ago, in another version of our lives. Then, without reason or rupture, we drifted apart—not dramatically, not with intent, but in that quiet, inevitable way that people sometimes do. 

I don’t quite remember how we got there, but at some point in the conversation, he told me he sees it—that quiet sadness in my eyes. I couldn’t help but realize how little effort it took for him to notice.

Now, looking back, I also ask myself: since our paths crossed before, would he have noticed it back then? I’m not sure. Maybe I had hidden it better, or maybe I had nothing to hide. Maybe the version of me he once knew had not yet made space for this kind of sadness. But here we were now, and he saw it, and I let him.

It is strange how people slip in and out of our lives, how timing shapes the weight of a relationship more than intention ever could. Some people return not because they were meant to, but because we are finally capable of meeting them as we are, rather than as we were.

I couldn’t help but tear up, and when he told me not to cry, I looked at him with empty eyes, unaware that I had been crying. I refused to acknowledge the tears.

Was it sadness? Was it relief? Or was it simply proof that I could still feel something beyond the mere safety of contentment?

There was something so ordinary about it, so unremarkable, that I almost wanted to dismiss it entirely. But maybe that’s where the meaning was—not in the depth of the feeling, but in the simple fact that it existed.

This has happened to me before, though back then, it was different—deeper, heavier. I used to be so detached that I didn’t cry for six months. When I saw others cry, they seemed almost alien to me; in my mind, nothing was worth my tears. But something has changed. These unrecognized tears are no longer just remnants of past emotional numbness—they are also, in some way, a quiet hope for the future.

Those tears were, perhaps, a testament to an unconscious trust in this person—still a stranger in some ways, someone I hesitate to ask certain things, and yet, in that moment, I felt comfortable enough to let go. The tears arrived before I had time to question whether I wanted them to. That, in itself, must mean something.

I say they were also about hope because, in a way, they were. They reassured me that I am still capable of feeling something beyond mere contentment, beyond passive acceptance. Maybe this was not about him at all—not about the presence of someone else—but rather, the slow return of something within me.