Not Yet

Tell me....do you ever think about the life you didn’t live? Not in regret, but in that curious way you turn a photograph over in your hands, tracing the outlines of a world you were almost part of. That’s the ghost of what could be. It doesn’t demand answers. It just lingers, watching, waiting, humming softly at the edges of your choices.

Maybe you hear it when you catch in the tremor of what if. What if you had stayed, or left sooner? What if you had spoken up, or held your silence a little longer? Those what-ifs are not failures. They are doorways left slightly open, parallel rooms where another version of you still moves, unseen but alive, carrying the weight of paths you did not take.

Yearning, then, is not about chasing what is lost. It is about listening to what remains — the shadow of a self you could have been, tugging softly at your sleeve, asking to be remembered. Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it soothes. Always it hums with the truth that you were never meant to hold only one story.

And sometimes, the ghost is kind. It leans close to remind you: it is never too late. Roads circle back. Choices unfold again in different shapes. The life you didn’t live is not gone — it flickers at the edge of vision, a reminder that possibility never fully disappears. Other times, it is simply a companion, following silently behind, making the air feel heavier, richer, more alive.

So when you feel it — that flicker of almost, that ache of elsewhere — don’t turn away. Let it walk with you. Let it rest beside you. Because even the ghosts of what could be are not meant to frighten; they are meant to remind you that you are larger than the life you have chosen, and more infinite than the single road beneath your feet.