Segues and Long Nights

Staying up deep into the night, you cross a stage and everything changes. Your breath seems more calculated and you feel the cold air spreading through your lungs kindly.
Yes, you’re tired and your eyelids are heavy, but you feel eerily awake. You accept the darkness, no longer intimidated by it. You become one with the darkness and feel warm in its embrace.
Some limbs ache after exertion, but no one’s ready for sleep just yet. Laying down or sitting up, your eyes refuse to shut.
Things look different in the darkness, they belong to themselves. That shirt is no longer an option in your plethora of choices, it ceases to be yours. It’s just a shirt, laying half crumbled in that cupboard by that door.
You feel serene, yet your mind’s churning and thoughts navigate vividly.

The enormity of life dawns and clear images of your memories surface as you sit there with the multitude of feelings melting into each other: taking you back and forward in time. You think about the future, not in a sick way. The darkness seems to shield you from all the anxiety this train of thought chugs out. You think about the uncertainty at its core, not through the lens of expectations, success or progress. Just things as they are.

Yes, you accept yourself for who you are, and you’re at peace with yourself. An important question arises, ‘Who are you?’

And in a masterful segue, the first memory I can recall fizzes up:

I am waiting for something. I can barely contain my excitement. I don’t know who or what I am, but I’m waiting for something. I can feel my sister’s sweet, tight embrace from behind. My father’s buoyant laughter cuts through, but it’s muffled and reverberating. But I’m waiting for something else, what am I waiting for? In an instant it’s clear.
I see her flashing smile, white teeth gleaming through wide lips. She’s steps in holding a ball to enthrall me. I don’t need toys, I just need my mother. Family.

I don’t know who or what I am, but I exist. I am whole.