"It never got any easier, did it?" she asked, her voice trailing like the last embers of a dying fire. "I remember...", I began, but the words got stuck midair, lost among the swirling thoughts.

Life didn't come with a manual. We often stitched it together from the whispers of those before us—a piecemeal reflection of other people's journeys. Plans written in invisible ink, only revealed by the heat of hindsight.

More than once, my father said while cleaning his spectacles, "Keep your eyes open, boy. Half the world's wisdom is in knowing what to avoid." His words wrapped around my mind like a well-worn scarf, comforting yet confounding.

A spiral ever tightening, releasing gradually until we find ourselves once more in the center—static, yet everything around us is in flux.

Lost Journeys | Whispers of the Dusk | Ponderings of the Aged