I wasted too much time becoming potential.
That’s the sentence
that follows me everywhere now.
Not failure.
Not tragedy.
Just years of almost.
Almost disciplined.
Almost successful.
Almost in love.
Almost becoming the person
I kept describing to myself at night.
I had ambition in dangerous amounts.
Entire futures lived vividly inside my head.
Businesses. Art. Architecture. Escape.
A different city.
A different version of me.
But somehow
my mind was always facing another direction
while life was happening.
Even during important moments,
part of me remained absent.
Thinking about the past.
Romanticizing the future.
Missing the only thing
that actually needed me—
the present.
And slowly,
everything began slipping quietly.
People moved on.
Plans lost momentum.
Relationships became memories.
Time stopped feeling solid.
The worst part is
I can’t even say I never knew better.
I knew.
I just kept losing focus
like holding water in my hands.
Sometimes I envy people
who move through life directly.
Who decide something
and remain there.
Meanwhile I have spent years
becoming emotionally attached
to versions of life
I never fully entered.
Still,
somewhere underneath all this regret,
I think there is a person in me
trying to return.
Not perfect.
Not extraordinary.
Just present this time.