©ESR 2025


“The Halfway Place”

It hits me,
sometimes,
quietly—
in the curve of my hand
as it catches the lamp’s light
and I notice a softness that wasn’t there before.
A slackening.
A shadow where youth once sat.

I’m aging.

Not all at once,
not dramatically,
but like a candle whose wax dips slowly inward
without ever asking permission.

I see it in my father’s eyes—
the way they drift now,
how he stares at nothing with a kind of reverence
as if memory itself is too fragile to hold anymore.
I see it in the silence he leaves behind.
And I see it in the empty chair
that was once my mother’s laughter.

I didn’t think halfway would feel this hollow.
I thought I’d know who I was by now.
That I’d be rooted—
planted,
grown.

But I feel floaty,
like a balloon someone forgot to tie down.
Still bright,
still whole,
but untethered.
And maybe fading a little under the sun.

How do you age gracefully
when grace feels like something you have to earn,
and you’re not sure you’ve done enough to deserve it?

What have I built,
really?
What will I leave behind
besides unsent emails
and a handful of good intentions?

They don’t tell you
that aging feels like grief.
Not just for others,
but for the versions of yourself
you never got to be.

I’m trying to take stock,
but the shelves feel scattered.
Moments tucked away in boxes I haven’t opened.
Years lost in caretaking and compromise.
Love given freely,
but rarely returned the way I needed.

And yet—
beneath all of it,
there’s something else.

Not hope,
not yet.
But permission.
To ask.
To start.
To want more.

Maybe grace isn’t in the way you age,
but in the way you allow yourself
to keep becoming.

Maybe the lines in my hands
are not just signs of time passing,
but maps—
routes to a self
I’m still unfolding.

So tonight,
I don’t reach for answers.
I just let the questions sit beside me,
like old friends who no longer need
to fill the silence.

And I whisper to the dark,
not for rescue,
but for company:

I’m still here.
And I’m still trying.
And maybe,
that’s enough
for now.