Hiraeth

There's a strange kind of homesickness that follows you. Not for a place, exactly, but for a moment. For a version of you, and a version of a world that no longer exists.

You try to trace it: a hallway at dusk, the clatter of your parents in the kitchen, the woods behind your house that felt bigger than any country, the smell of rain on blacktop before you knew what bills were.

You remember that feeling. You remember the feeling of belonging to something simple and everyday. The sacred rhythm of school nights, the commercials between cartoons, your dog barking at nothing just to remind you he was still there.

And now?

Your childhood home belongs to someone else. They painted over the door frame—the one with your height written on it in ballpoint pen. The woods behind your house? Condos. Your parents' laughter is a sound you haven't heard in years. And your old friends? They're people you scroll past on birthdays. You don't know their voices anymore.

It's not grief, exactly. It's softer than that. It's a background ache. A phantom limb made of summer evenings and the warmth of a television left on in the other room.

You were homesick for a time you didn't know was ending while you were living in it.

And all you can do now is remember. And carry it. Quietly. Permanently.

This has been a love letter to a forgotten thing, and the truth that even stars burn out—but their light keeps traveling.