The Oldest thing I own… (and still use today)

Close your eyes.
Not to sleep—
but to remember.

What do you see?

Most of us… see nothing.
Just the quiet hum of obligations.
The echo of the day.
The scroll of things left unsaid.

But there’s more—
isn’t there?

Beneath the spreadsheets and responsibilities,
beneath the posture we carry to appear okay,
beneath the voice that tells us what we should be doing—

there’s a place.

You once lived there.
Where a park wasn’t just a park,
a lamppost wasn’t just a lamppost.
Where your bedroom became a ship,
a stage,
a secret portal.

Where your thoughts didn’t have to explain themselves.
Where you could believe a cloud was a whale,
and no one laughed.

This was your first home.
Made not of walls,
but of wonder.

---

And then, we were told to leave.

Not directly—
not cruelly—
but with enough repetition to believe
that this gift had an expiration date.

We were told to grow up. To put away childish things. To trade invention for performance.

So we adapted.

We trimmed the edges of ourselves. We softened our voices. We tucked away the parts that didn’t fit
into “mature,” “realistic,” or “professional.” Piece by quiet piece, we hid our wildest truths.
We performed acceptability. And what was left? A thinner version of who we were. Not untrue—just incomplete.

I thought I had lost it. I thought I had let it die in my childhood bedroom, or left it behind in stories I stopped telling out loud. But it was still with me.

Not in the spotlight—
in the shadows.
Waiting.

I noticed it in the moments my life cracked open.
When I couldn’t hold the mask anymore.
When grief arrived like thunder.
When silence stretched long enough
for me to hear something softer.

I began to follow that thread.

It didn’t shout.
It didn’t blame me for forgetting.

It simply said,
“This way.”

And I followed.

---

Now…
I still pay bills.
I still answer emails.
I still say “I’m fine” even when I’m not.

But I carry myself differently now
like someone who knows where they’ve been.

I walk through a cemetery
with someone who doesn’t flinch
at the shape of my feelings.
Someone who sees the real me
and doesn’t ask me to shrink.

And there,
among the graves,
the light changes.

The gravestones speak.
Not in sorrow,
but in story.

The shadows aren’t empty anymore.
They’re full of presence—
and memory—
and grace.

I kneel in soft grass,
talk to the ones no longer here,
and feel them closer
than they ever were in flesh.

Wonder and grief,
sitting side by side.
Holding hands.
Breathing slow.

I find joy in a blurry photo
of a strawberry moon.
Taken in the middle of a city
surrounded by synthetic light
I trace stars in my mind,
and dream of galaxies
that haven’t been named yet.

I laugh with my children
as we walk with wonder
and for heart-shaped rocks.
I let myself be ridiculous.
I let myself be real.

---

And when I close my eyes now—
I no longer see nothing.
I see that first home.

I feel the whisper of stories not yet told.
I go home, not to a house, but to a world inside me
that still sings.

The oldest thing I still own.
The truest thing I still use.

The one who waited.
The one who wept.
The one who whispered—

Welcome back.

---

So what’s the oldest thing I own and still use today?

It’s the one thing I never truly lost,
But I did forget.
Until I remembered.

It’s the one thing I never outgrew, never abandoned, never stopped needing.
My imagination.