Journal Page

I pick up my pen
in my left hand
and begin my week.

Top right corner, in cursive:
The second week of April.

This week feels like a gift
I have been waiting to open.

The mainland again.
Familiar roads,
Familiar arms.

My sister’s hug,
the kind that resets something deep.

My nephew turns five.
Five years, hard-earned.
He smiles, holding
a Yoshi stuffed animal
from Grandma,
She remembered.

I try to stay inside each moment,
to hold it still somehow,
writing faster,
as if I could keep it
by naming it.

Like taking too big a bite
of Iron Man birthday cake,
red frosting staining our tongues.

We walk to the dollar store,
childhood, unchanged.
Play-Doh, Pringles,
a colouring book
with a hidden squirrel tucked inside.

I pause, just for a second,
watching the children
light up over everything.

Ben takes my left hand,
Chloe my right.

Later, I sit with my mom,
colouring with her markers.

We sit side by side,

No announcement,
The quiet sharing of this moment
clicks something quietly back into place.

Mornings come quickly,
waffles,
strawberries,
whipped cream piled high for Chloe.
Made special with grandma’s hands.

Suddenly,
I am small again,
I watch my mom
do the same for us.

We stay up late and trade stories
that never wear out.
Showing there are two side to every
Shared childhood memory.

We laugh in that easy way
that only happens
when nothing needs to be anything
other than what it is.

It is simple.

Unrushed.

Enough.

Just time,
and love,
and the quiet kind of healing
that slips in unnoticed
and leaves you different.

The kind of weekend
you write down carefully
so one day
you can find your way back to it
and remember:

There was a time
when nothing extraordinary happened
and it was everything.