As I age, the shape of meaning shifts
no longer angles,
no longer sharp.
It flows now,
like water escaping the hands
that once tried to hold it
too tightly.
I used to chase truth
like a mathematician
equations chalked across my chest,
defenses drawn in logic lines,
proofs stacked like walls
between me and what I felt.
But life
never stayed still long enough
to be measured.
Fulfillment crept in
through cracks I didn’t see
in the hush between thoughts,
in the pull of a sunset
that made no sense
and needed none.
I searched for truth
in clean absolutes,
but found it instead
in the soft murmur of uncertainty
in the way my chest rises
when something just feels right,
even when I can’t explain why.
Still,
the hardest part is knowing
whether that voice I follow
is really mine
or a whisper borrowed
from someone I thought I had to be.
Is it my soul speaking,
or the echo of survival?
Even feeling can wear a mask.
Yet I listen.
More than I ever did.
I sit with the sound,
wait for it to settle,
and trust that if it brings peace,
it’s worth following.
Now I see
truth isn’t a fixed star.
It’s a flicker in each of us,
a constellation drawn
by different hands.
I’ve stopped needing the answer
to be universal.
I’ve started letting the question
be enough.
And in that surrender
in that unspoken trust
that meaning lives in the marrow,
not the math
I feel more alive
than I ever did
trying to be correct.