The Old Bricks

Some days it feels like the past is sitting on your chest. Like no matter how far you walk you are still building the same rooms, sleeping in the same dark, wondering why nothing changes. Those bricks are not going anywhere. The grief, the loss, the thing that happened, the version of you that didn't make it through unchanged. You did not choose them and you cannot remove them. They are part of the structure now, holding the shape of you whether you think about them or not. The trouble starts when you keep handling them. Turning them over. Putting them on show. Handling the same stones so often there's no hands left over to lay anything new. See them for what they are instead. Old bricks. Yours. Already placed. Nothing left to do with them but let them sit. Look at them coldly. You cannot change what's already there. What you can do is build more, build better, build different. Those bricks made you who you are. That's exactly what lets you choose who you're building next. They will still be the loudest thing in the house some days, even once you've built past them. That's not because they're the biggest part of what you are. It's because they're the oldest, and old things shout longer than they should. When that happens, say what's actually true right now, out loud or on paper. Not the wall. What's true today. Who's in your life. What you got through since. What you're doing this week that has nothing to do with any of it. Write it down if you need to see it. The wall will still be there. But it stops being the only thing on the page. That was then. This is what I have now.