life

Tag: dailyprompt-1870

  • The Words We Leave Unsaid.

    A wave retreats—
    Not to abandon the shore,
    But to remind it what absence feels like.

    The Message I Never Sent

    It was a Thursday. A forgettable kind of day. The kind of day that drifts by unnoticed, blending into the ones before it.

    I had a thought—just a small one, barely there. I should check in. It’s been a while.

    I typed out a message. Simple, nothing grand. Hey, been thinking about you. Hope you’re doing okay.

    I stared at it for a moment, then set my phone down. I’ll send it later, I told myself. Tomorrow, maybe.

    Tomorrow never came.

    Instead, there was a different message. One I wasn’t prepared for. One that didn’t ask permission before changing everything.

    And just like that, the moment I had been waiting for—the perfect time—was gone.

    The Conversations We Assume We’ll Have

    We always think there’s more time. We live as if life stretches endlessly ahead, as if the people we love will always be there, waiting for us to find the right words.

    But life does not move in straight lines. It moves in sudden turns, in sharp edges, in moments that shift from ordinary to irreversible in the space of a breath.

    And then we are left with the echoes of what we didn’t say.

    • The apology we meant to give but never did.
    • The “I miss you” we assumed they already knew.
    • The invitation we kept postponing until it was too late.

    There is no such thing as the right time. There is only now.

    Wabi-Sabi and the Beauty of Imperfect Endings

    Wabi-sabi tells us that nothing is permanent. That what makes life beautiful is precisely the fact that it cannot be held forever.

    A leaf does not fall from a tree at the wrong time. It falls when it is meant to.
    A candle does not burn too quickly. It simply burns as long as it can.
    A goodbye, spoken or unspoken, is still a goodbye.

    We do not get to decide how long we have with someone. But we do get to decide how present we are while they’re here.

    Lessons From a Message That Was Never Sent

    • Say it now. “I love you.” “I miss you.” “I’m sorry.” There is no better time.
    • Stop waiting for perfect moments. They don’t exist.
    • Reach out, even if it’s been too long. Even if you don’t know what to say.
    • The small things you hold onto—grudges, hesitations—will never matter as much as you think.
    • The people you love deserve to know they are loved.

    The Silence That Taught Me Everything

    That night, I sat with my phone in my hand, rereading the message I never sent.

    The words were still there. But the person I had meant to send them to was not.

    I closed my eyes, exhaled, and typed another message.

    This time, I hit send.

    Because some words should never be left unsaid.

  • The Last Lesson. 145.1

    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.