the shape of what was coming

sometimes i think about those stories — the ones with a prophecy, or a fate scrawled into the stars, or a letter that arrives from the future and tells you who you’ll become. who you’ll love. what you’ll lose. the shape of the end.

sometimes i wonder what kind of person i'd be if i’d known mine.

not the big, dramatic fate. not the operatic stuff. just the quiet truths that feel enormous in hindsight:
that the first kiss wouldn't be the most important one.
that some people leave without slamming the door.
that i’d never feel more alive than when playing someone else’s sad songs on vinyl, late at night, to a room of strangers who didn’t need me to smile.
that grief makes a home in you, and some days it sings along.

would i have run faster toward certain moments? would i have lingered longer in others? or would knowing have dulled the ache of becoming — made it a checklist instead of a life?

i don’t know. i think i used to wish for a map. but these days i find myself softening toward the idea of not-knowing. letting the small choices gather into a story. not because fate is beautiful — but because it isn’t. because it’s messy and human and written in crooked lines, and you only ever realise what it meant much, much later. when you're standing in a kitchen, or staring at an old photo, or playing the b-side you used to skip.

and maybe that’s the magic of it. not knowing. choosing anyway. loving anyway. hoping anyway.

we become the kind of people who could hold what’s coming.
and we do.