dear mrj.,

i’m starting with an apology—my memory for first meetings is terrible :) please don’t take it personally. it’s just the way my brain is wired.

this is a continuation of something from pages and ages ago. it makes me oddly sad to see you tired, yet still forcing yourself to sit through things that seem to have no end. (i keep wondering why you have to try so hard. i really do.)

did it happen the first day i arrived—when you smiled before i could, while i was confused as heck and equally nervous about who these people were and what this whole place even was?

it couldn’t have been. i was gone almost as soon as i came, and when i returned, i had no recollection of you or of most people in the space. something had obviously changed about you, though. i realised it much later.

then came the gatherings in which there were words and there were people and there was some combination of both in a proportion that stopped making sense before it began. i started by speaking my heart out. i learnt their ways. i grew quieter. and quiet helped me notice what i hadn't before: glances, smiles, acknowledgements, and a whole lot of nothing else. when you’re trapped, even the faintest creak can feel like hope, can’t it? and thus began an exchange of words, driven mostly by the necessity of exchanging ideas.

you sit there quietly, waiting for others to begin first. joining late seems to be your thing. you prefer the edges to the spotlight. sometimes, i have to write this off as a mental exercise that keeps my brain sharp—god knows if it does! i don’t know if the respect is mutual. i don’t know if it has to be.

i just hope the good parts of you stay intact. the world has enough people who’ve lost theirs.

from a distance that feels safe and a world of warmth,

observer_22