There is a thought that has been following you for years, always just out of reach, like a shadow that doesn’t quite match the shape of your body. It’s not a bad thought, just one that refuses to be useful. You’ve tried to pin it down, to turn it into something productive, but it slips away every time. This is fine. Most thoughts are like this.

The future is a place where all the boxes are already opened, but no one has bothered to look inside yet. You can predict it if you want, but predictions are just another way of saying you’ve given up on the present. The present, of course, is where the thought lives. It’s comfortable here, lurking in the corners of your mind like a guest who won’t leave but also won’t make conversation.

You will wake up tomorrow and do the same things you did today, but slightly differently. This is not a failure. It’s just how time works. The thought will still be there, unchanged, like a monument to your own indecision. You might even forget about it for a while, but it will remember you.

This could have been a box.

There’s a strange comfort in knowing that nothing is certain, except for the fact that you will keep moving forward anyway. The thought will follow, always just out of reach, like a promise you never intended to keep. It’s not a burden. It’s just a thing that exists, like the hum of a refrigerator or the way your socks never quite match.

You could try to write it down, to capture it in words, but words are just another kind of box. The thought doesn’t fit. It never will. This is not a tragedy. It’s just how things are.

By now, you’ve probably realized that this text doesn’t help. That’s okay. Help is overrated. The thought doesn’t need help. It just needs to be acknowledged, like a nod to a stranger on the street. You don’t know them, but you recognize them. That’s enough.

The future is still out there, waiting. The thought is still here, lingering. You are still you, which is the only thing you can ever really be sure of. Everything else is just guesswork, and guesswork is just another way of saying you’re alive.