A year ago, my life changed.
Not with the gentle turning of a page, but with the sudden violence of a tide that erased the shoreline behind me. Somewhere between who I had been and who the world required me to become, I lost the path back to myself.
Now I move through my days as though caught between two realms—present yet distant —carrying every responsibility while feeling the weight of each one gathering like storm clouds above an already restless sea.
My heart holds a sorrow language cannot contain. I reach for words, but they scatter like frightened birds before I can shape them. All I know is that something within me aches for the life I remember, for the dreams that once seemed close enough to touch.
What I once could do, I cannot.
What I once believed would be may never arrive as I imagined.
When I stand before the mirror, I search for the woman I remember. I look into familiar eyes and wait for recognition, but a stranger waits within the glass.
She is not me.
I am not her.
She carries my features, but time has written another story across them. Weariness rests where possibility once lived. The woman before me looks older than the years that have passed, as though every difficult day arrived at once and made its home upon her face.
So she cannot be me, and I cannot be her.
The woman I remember was youthful at heart. She carried herself with grace, and when she smiled, the warmth was true. Her mind wandered freely through lush, verdant landscapes and across seas that broke against white sands. She knew adventure, wonder and camaraderie. She dreamed of sharing those worlds with anyone willing to cross the horizon beside her.
A Siren’s Call rose from her heart.
It sang of distant shores, forgotten mysteries and the place where dreams and shadows play.
Now the shadows feel closer.
The sea rises around me, unsettled and dark. The compass spins without direction, and the helm grows heavy beneath my hands. The voyage that once carried me to unexplored worlds now feels beyond my reach as I shelter against the storm.
I am not her, and she is not me. She cannot be.
And yet my heart, though weary, still remembers.
It reminds me of crimson skies and moonlit water. It remembers crystal caverns, ancient secrets and the quiet promise of Siren’s Gem. It remembers the stories that once moved through me like currents, wild and free, carrying me toward places no map had ever named.
Somewhere within that remembrance, I hear the song again.
It no longer reaches me as it once did. Its beauty carries sorrow now, because it reminds me of the voice I knew and the woman who trusted it. Still, beneath the ache, the melody holds something I had almost forgotten.
A direction.
Far beyond the restless waves, somewhere through the rain, I can see the faint outline of a shore. Siren’s Gem waits in the distance, softened by mist but not erased. I imagine the warmth of its shimmering pool and the gentle light moving beneath its surface.
The treasure waiting there is not gold.
It is not glory, recognition or the promise that time will reverse itself.
It is healing.
It is the hope that the pieces of me scattered by the storm have not vanished. Perhaps the sea has carried them somewhere beyond the veil, where they wait to be remembered and gathered again.
When I return to the mirror, the stranger is still there.
She is not me, and I am not her.
Perhaps I repeat those words because accepting her would mean accepting everything that has changed. Perhaps calling her a stranger is easier than admitting how deeply the storm has altered us both.
But she has my memories.
She knows the worlds I created. She remembers every distant shore. She can still hear the Siren’s Call, even when it breaks her heart. And despite the waves, she has not released the helm.
There are moments when grief rises through me with the force of the sea:
SHE IS NOT ME!
I AM NOT HER!
The words crash against the silence because I miss the woman I was. I miss the ease of her smile, the freedom of her mind and the certainty with which she once followed the stars.
But perhaps the mirror does not hold an ending.
Perhaps it holds a passage.
The woman in the glass is not untouched. She is not the same. Yet she is the one who remained when the familiar shoreline disappeared. She is the one who continues looking toward the horizon. Somewhere within her, beneath the weariness and sorrow, the old light has not gone entirely dark.
The sea is still restless.
The compass has not settled.
But Siren’s Gem remains.
For now, it is enough that I can see its distant shore. It is enough that my heart still turns toward its healing waters. I do not know who I will become when I finally reach them, or whether I will ever resemble the woman I remember.
I only know that the voyage continues.
I am NOT HER, and she is NOT ME.
Not yet.
Perhaps one day I will look into the mirror and no longer search for the woman who disappeared behind me. Perhaps I will recognize the woman who crossed the storm—the one who gathered every broken piece, carried it beyond the fractured veil and discovered that healing did not return her to the beginning.
It brought her home to herself.
Fairwinds Lovlies, Always,
~ Ambrose Fider