the smallest things survive

memories and inner worlds

there are memories that have never become stories.

they have slipped quietly out of the world and into me. years can pass and i can forget entire periods of my life yet certain moments remain exactly where i left them. they return with the same feeling they had when they first happened as if they were never waiting to be remembered.

every so often one returns. it simply appears. for a few seconds i am there again and then it leaves as quietly as it arrived. i always find it strange that it has been with me this whole time. entire years disappear without asking permission yet something as small as the way someone looked at you once can continue existing with perfect clarity.

so much of a life exists beyond language. there are parts of me that have never become words. i don’t know if they ever will. they feel complete where they are. as though they were always meant to remain inside me.

i wonder if that is true of everyone.

how much of another person exists beyond the version that reaches us? beyond conversation. beyond memory as it is usually told. there must be entire landscapes that have never been spoken aloud. feelings that have remained feelings. thoughts that arrived, settled somewhere and became part of a life without ever becoming a sentence.

it feels impossible that every person i pass is carrying something like that. an ordinary face and somewhere inside it a whole collection of moments no one else has ever seen. experiences that have remained with them simply because they belonged there.

sometimes i think that is what a person really is. a whole life, lived twice. once in the world and once inside.