I thought that I had unpacked most of my grief. But as I stood in front of the doorway, it all came flooding back. Or had it never left? I was uncertain why, now, after all this time, I felt like I couldn’t breathe. My eyes filled with tears, and there was an ache inside that I couldn’t deny. I wasn’t sure of the trigger this time. Was it the day? A date? A time? A place? Or was it simply that my grief had shifted, and I hadn’t moved along?

I didn’t know. So, I stood there in the silent chill of a late summer’s evening and collapsed on the steps. I threw my back against the old wooden door and wiped the tears from my eyes. I knew it would be a matter of seconds until I couldn’t stop crying. 

But I didn’t care. I needed to get it out. It didn’t mean that I would be less than I was before. I wanted to feel. I needed to know the inside. Could I still experience emotions outside the numbness I had handled for so long? Had I locked myself away that day? Had I put everything into a self-protective locker and thrown away the key?

I didn’t know. I wasn’t sure about anything. But, you see, I hadn’t been here since I walked away. So, coming back meant unpacking everything that I left behind. But in carefully guarding, I shut the world off.

It was the only way I could navigate. In the previous days, I wandered around, afraid to seek and want. The restraints had become so tight, imprints on every inch of my body, but eventually, they rusted and wore thin.

I gave way.

When the metal pieces broke into tiny pieces, I emerged whole. I looked at the rusty fragments and tried to piece them together into something different. Could I create a mosaic from the ruins, or was it better to leave them in their scattered state?

I didn’t know. But I knew those broken, rusty, worn pieces were a part of me. They didn’t define me. Each shred belongs to a space in time. I wanted to pick up each piece and sift through it. Some edges were sharp, yet others not. A few details looked like hearts. Others were jagged and unrecognizable. I had felt lost for so long, unaware that the road was leading me somewhere. So I took steps forward and inevitably stepped backward.

I stalled for a long time because I lost the key I needed to find the answers.

Answers in the spaces and places I’d traverse in my quest to find.

I’ve forgotten already, Garnet wrote. 

I couldn’t remember what came next. I sat in the frustration of my mind fog and feeling like I wasn’t myself. 

And then I drifted back. 

I’m here now. Garnet said as she took in her surroundings.

I felt a warmth on my skin. Was it morning? How could that be? I wasn’t sure, but through the breaks in the trees where the branches split, the light broke through. 

It felt like the day I stood in front of that door. I had released so much. I had let the restraints go, no longer afraid to unpack – except that I couldn’t remember the name, space, or place. 

Had I hit my head that hard? Or had I chosen to block it?

I may never know. Or do I know? Perhaps some things are better left neatly folded.

For now, anyway.