I sit beside the window, watching light spill across two glass containers holding my rescued plants. My thoughts drift like petals on a spring breeze, some heavy, some bright. Each one tied to this space I’ve called home.
When I first stood before this window, I imagined the life it might hold: birdsong folding into evening, distant sirens rising and falling like breath, planes tracing slow lines across the sky. I imagined rain gathering on leaves, snow dressing bare branches, and how my days would stretch across this view, filled with wonder and ache.
One day, a bird with a bright red crown landed on the railing. It looked at me. I looked back. Something shifted. Not everything, just enough. Not long after, I picked up my brushes again. Color returned to my world. Maybe the bird meant nothing, but I chose to believe it was a sign. That belief gave me momentum.
During the long silence of the pandemic, this window became more than glass and frame. It became a promise that life continued. Sounds carried more weight. Light meant more. And the plants, saved from a dying garden, began to matter deeply. I worried they wouldn’t make it in such small vessels, but they did, reaching little by little, as if they understood what it meant to be held together by determination alone.
Now, as I pack to leave this space, I carry what’s been built here. The laughter of friends and boys I love. The melodies that once spilled from this windowsill. The dreams that reached, and those that never landed. The ache of late-night cries. I’ve said goodbye to some friendships, welcomed unexpected connections, tended to old wounds, and tried to love more deliberately. This space has seen me through it all — heartbreak and healing, risk and reward.
And it held the hard chapters too, the day doctors warned me of what the future might hold. The prognosis that stilled everything and unraveled my sense of certainty. Near misses. Deep grief. The slow climb toward better days. But also, the wins, career milestones, academic steps, quiet breakthroughs I once doubted were possible. Through it all, this space offered steadiness when little else could.
I don’t know what lies ahead. But I leave this window with deep gratitude. Every morning and every night helped shape the person I’ve become. Growth isn’t just about the right conditions sometimes, it’s about the will to keep reaching, even when everything feels uncertain.
Thank you, dear space, for being part of my unfolding. Home isn’t a structure. It is the places that hold our becoming. And because of you, I know I’ll carry home with me wherever I go.
What spaces have molded your becoming?
Feel free to share. I’m always listening.
