You Did Not Know It Was the Last Time

Most of us do not notice the last time until long after it has passed.

The last morning it felt like yours. The last Tuesday you moved through without the weight of the thing you did not yet know. The last time you came home and it was just home, not the place where the question was waiting.

We do not get a warning. That is the part nobody tells us. There is no announcement, no flag in the calendar, nothing that says pay attention, this is the day the before ends. It just ends. And then one day we are standing somewhere and we realize we are already in the after and we cannot find the seam between them.

That is not a failure of attention. That is how it works. The before does not ask for witnesses. It just quietly becomes the last time, and we are usually too busy living it to notice.

The thing worth knowing is this: the not-noticing is not the loss. The loss was already happening. The not-noticing just means we were present in our lives right up until the moment we weren't. That is actually something.

We have been in this territory all month. If something in here is landing, it is because you already know this place.

thereturningproject.com/journey

Inward. Onward. Go.