"An Autumn Full Of Almosts"

 

The Things That Return with the Rain

 

The wind has been restless these past few days. It moves through the streets as though it has somewhere urgent to be, shaking branches, turning umbrellas inside out, carrying the rain beneath collars and sleeves. From my window, I watch people hurry home with their heads lowered. There is something familiar about the way they hold themselves against the weather. Lately, I have been moving through my days like that too, trying to keep a few things from getting in. It gets dark so quickly now. I look outside expecting another hour of daylight and find the windows opposite already glowing. The afternoon disappears while I am occupied with ordinary things, and suddenly the room needs a light. I reach for the switch with a strange feeling that I have misplaced part of the day. There are evenings when that small loss unsettles me more than it should.

Perhaps it is because my head already feels crowded. There are things to remember, decisions to make, messages to answer. Sometimes I read the same sentence several times before it begins to mean anything. Someone speaks, and although I hear every word, it takes a moment for the meaning to reach me. I carry on with what needs doing, but beneath it all there is a tiredness I struggle to explain. Then the rain begins again, and somehow I think of you. There is no sensible reason for it. You are not in the street below, nor behind any of those lighted windows. Yet certain evenings bring you close with very little effort. The sound of water against the glass, a song playing quietly while I make tea, the empty space beside me when something makes me smile—any one of these can lead me back to a conversation I thought I had forgotten.

I wonder what you would say about this weather. Whether you would complain about the cold or stand by the window for a while before drawing the curtains. I imagine telling you how the wind nearly took my umbrella, making the story a little funnier than it was just to hear you laugh. Such small things. When I think about the life I once hoped for, it is usually these ordinary moments that return first. I would have liked to know the quiet version of an evening with you. Two cups on a table. Your voice from another room. A walk cut short because neither of us had dressed warmly enough. The ease of having someone to tell when the day had been difficult, without first having to decide how much to explain. I know I am imagining a life we never shared. Even so, there are nights when its simplicity makes it difficult to put away. And somewhere inside all of this is a question I have never quite settled.

Should I have asked once more? I do not mean that your answer was something I had the right to change. You had your own feelings, and I knew that caring for you meant respecting them. Still, regret is rarely as reasonable as we would like it to be. It visits with a different version of the same afternoon, a few better words, a little more courage. It lets me believe, briefly, that I might have understood everything more clearly if I had spoken once again. Perhaps I would only have heard the same answer. Perhaps I would have walked away with the same ache and less room for wondering. I cannot know. What troubles me sometimes is the thought that I left too much inside myself: how deeply I cared, how seriously I meant it, how frightened I was of losing even the small place I had in your life. I was trying to protect something precious, and silence seemed safer at the time. It is easy now to be brave on behalf of the person I was then. From this distance, I can give him all the right sentences. I can tell him to look up, speak slowly, say what matters. But I remember how much there was to lose. I remember the carefulness that came with loving someone whose closeness I could not take for granted. Even an ordinary conversation could feel like something I needed to hold gently.

The weather seems to make room for these memories. On brighter days, there is always somewhere else for my attention to go. People remain outside longer. The evening feels open. Now the rain keeps me indoors, and the darkness gathers around the house before I have finished with the day. I hear the kettle click off. A car passes through water on the road. In the quiet that follows, an old thought becomes surprisingly clear. Tonight, it is the memory of how much I used to look forward to hearing from you. I had forgotten that particular feeling: how a difficult day could soften at the sight of your name, how quickly I would find the energy for a conversation when I had been telling everyone else I was tired. There was something innocent about that hope. I sometimes miss the person I was while carrying it, before I learned to expect so little.

Life has become fuller since then, although fuller does not always mean easier to understand. There are responsibilities now that cannot be postponed because I am distracted. There are plans I am trying to make work and days when I cannot tell whether I am moving forward or simply keeping up. I wish, sometimes, that I could speak to you about all of it. Then I realise I am reaching for a kind of comfort we never actually promised each other. That realisation brings me back to the room. To the tea cooling beside me. To the phone lying still on the table. There is tenderness in remembering you, but there is also a loneliness I need to be honest about. Some evenings I miss you; on others, I miss having someone close enough to notice that I have gone quiet. The two feelings resemble each other in the dark, and I am still learning to tell them apart.

I hope your evenings are gentle wherever you are. I hope you have someone who listens when you begin telling a story, someone who remembers the small things you mention without thinking. It hurts a little to imagine that person, but I hope they are kind. Whatever I once wanted for myself, I would never wish you an emptier life simply because I could not find a place in it. Outside, the rain has eased. I can hear individual drops falling from the gutter now, and the wind no longer presses so hard against the window. Tomorrow there will be work to do, people to speak to, another day asking for my attention. I will get dressed, check the weather, and leave the house. There is a life here that still needs me to be present, even while parts of it feel uncertain.

But tonight, I let myself remember without reaching for the phone. I let the unanswered question remain unanswered. Perhaps I will always wish I had found a few more words. Perhaps, with time, I will be kinder to the younger version of myself who could not find them. For now, I draw the curtains and carry my cup to the sink. Before turning out the light, I pause at the window once more. It is raining again.

For a moment, I wish I could tell you.

Joice💓