A candle flickers—
Not because the wind is cruel,
But because it is teaching the flame how to dance.
The Phone Call That Changed Everything
It was a Tuesday. A nothing kind of day. The kind of day you don’t write about, the kind that dissolves into the background of life without leaving a mark.
I was folding laundry when my phone rang.
A familiar number. A voice I hadn’t heard in too long.
“Hey. I need to tell you something.”
There was a pause, the kind that stretches out like a bridge over something vast and unknowable.
“It’s bad.”
And just like that, the world shifted.
We like to think we have time. That there will always be another morning, another chance to say the things left unsaid. But time is not a promise. It is a visitor. And sometimes, without warning, it leaves.
The Things We Forget Until It’s Too Late
We move through life collecting lessons like souvenirs, some forced upon us, some gentle, some cruel. But the deepest ones are always the ones that come too late.
- You will never regret saying “I love you” too many times. But you will regret the time you assumed they already knew.
- You can keep waiting for the perfect moment to reach out, but life does not wait with you.
- The people who mean the most to you will not be there forever. And when they go, you will ache for one more ordinary Tuesday.
That is what I learned.
Not in a book. Not in a classroom. Not in the way I wanted to.
But in the way life always teaches its hardest lessons.
Through loss.
Through a voice on the other end of a phone call, cracking under the weight of things that cannot be undone.
Through the silence that follows when the call ends, and you are left alone with everything you should have said.
Wabi-Sabi and the Weight of Impermanence
Wabi-sabi tells us that beauty is found in transience. That nothing is meant to last, and that is what makes it precious.
The chipped tea cup. The withering flower. The sun setting behind the city, never the same shade of orange twice.
The people we love.
We try to hold on, to freeze moments in time, but the truth is—we only ever have now.
A dinner that could have been rescheduled.
A call we meant to return but didn’t.
A moment we let slip by, assuming there would be another.
But sometimes, there isn’t another.
And all we are left with is the quiet understanding that love is not something to be hoarded—it is something to be given, while we still can.
Lessons From a Phone Call I Wasn’t Ready For
- Call them. Now, not later.
- Say the words, even if they sound clumsy. “I love you.” “I miss you.” “I’m sorry.”
- Forgive while you still have time.
- Let the small things go. They are never as important as they seem.
- Nothing is permanent. Love as if you know that.
The Echo of an Unfinished Goodbye
I stood there, the phone still in my hand, the weight of the words pressing against my ribs.
Some lessons, once learned, cannot be unlearned.
And this was one of them.
I grabbed my keys.
There was someone I needed to see.
life 
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