I feel like I'm finally saying this out loud, even if it's just to the internet. We moved my parents out of their house last week, the one I grew up in, and it was… a lot. I’m the oldest, so of course, I got stuck with most of the clearing out. My old room, you know? It’s been sitting there, basically untouched since I left for college. My mom kept saying it was my "sanctuary," which always felt kinda weird to me. But whatever. So I’m in there, every single day, every day for a week, going through boxes of old school projects, dusty trophies from sports I barely remember playing, a million old t-shirts. And then, at the very back of the closet, under a pile of yearbooks, I found it. A shoebox. Not just any shoebox, it was a Nike one, the kind that came with those chunky Air Maxes everyone had. I remembered it instantly. I opened it up, and there they were. Stacked neatly, like little brittle secrets. Poems. So many poems. And they were... *dramatic*. Like, capital-D Dramatic. All for this one girl, Sarah. Sarah from high school. We were never even really together, not in a serious way. We flirted, we hung out in groups, we had those long, intense talks that feel so deep when you’re seventeen. But that was it. She never really… chose me. You know? Reading them back now, I just… wow. The angst. The unrequited longing. I wrote about her eyes, her laugh, the way her hair smelled. I wrote about how my world stopped when she walked into a room. How I felt this ache for her, every single second. It’s embarrassing, sure, but it’s also like looking at a stranger. This kid who was so consumed by this feeling, this *idea* of a girl, and who felt everything so intensely. He was a different person entirely. And that’s the thing that really hit me. Looking at those poems, at that kid, I realized how much I’ve… faded. Not just physically, but like, inside. Who even was that guy? The one who had all those big feelings, who put them into words, even if they were terrible words? The one who thought about things like that, who had time to sit and write about how someone’s smile was like the sunrise? I don’t even know what my *own* smile looks like anymore, let alone someone else's. Now, it’s just… days. Get up. Get the kids breakfast. Get them dressed. Play with them. Clean. Cook. Laundry. Bedtime stories. Rinse, repeat. Every single day. I love them, I do, I love my kids more than anything. But sometimes I look in the mirror and I just see “Mom.” Not me. Not the guy who wrote those ridiculous poems, or even the version of me that existed before kids. Just “Mom.” And I feel so guilty even thinking it, because this is what I wanted, right? This life? But sometimes I just want to remember what it felt like to have a feeling that was just *mine*. A feeling that didn't revolve around anyone else. So I sat there, on the floor of my childhood bedroom, surrounded by ghosts of myself, holding this shoebox of unsent, over-the-top confessions, and I just… felt hollow. Like that kid from the poems, the one who poured his whole heart out for someone who didn’t even know, he’s gone. And I don’t know how to get him back. Or if I even can. And that’s a heavy, heavy thought to carry, every single day.