small things that turned out to be not-small at all

not everything life-changing arrives with fanfare. sometimes it’s a sentence overheard on a rainy walk. a book picked up because the cover reminded you of something you couldn’t name. a stranger’s kindness that landed in the right place, at the right (or wrong) time.

i think about a thursday when i was 23, sitting in the back of a nearly-empty cafe that sold tea-stained paperbacks by the kilo. i wasn’t looking for anything, just somewhere to be. i picked up oranges are not the only fruit three times before i bought it. i didn’t know it would break something open. i didn’t know it would say the thing i couldn’t yet say about myself.

or the night someone casually called me they, like it wasn’t a question. we were leaving a venue, soaked in rain and bass. “they said they liked the opening act better.” i remember it exactly. it wasn’t dramatic, just… right. a small shift. a loosening. i didn’t correct them. i let it stay.

there was also the time i made a playlist for someone i told myself i wasn’t in love with. carefully disordered tracks, like it would hurt less that way. i never said what it was. they never asked. but they kept it. still have it, apparently. that counts for something, doesn’t it?

it’s easy to overlook these things. they don’t ask much of you. they don’t wave their arms. they’re quiet, like tides or grief. but they’re real. and once they happen, something is different. even if you don’t notice right away.

i think the older i get, the more i trust the small turns. the almosts. the things i nearly didn’t say.