People I’ve loved, places I’ve been to, and feelings that shouldn’t be explained—because really, what’s the point of reducing magic to bullet points and definitions? Some things deserve to just be. Like that one song you randomly heard after ten years and suddenly, you’re eight again in the backseat of your parents’ car, legs too short to touch the floor, staring out the window like life was a music video. Or the feeling when you finally get that piano piece right—hands trembling, heart smug, and thinking, “Okay maybe I am a prodigy.”

And now I’m sitting here, this stupidly perfect breeze blowing in my face, toes in the sand, my people around me, and I know I’m going to miss this. Like deeply, achingly miss this. And the worst part? I haven’t even left yet. In less than ten days, I’ll be starting a brand-new life—cue dramatic music—without my parents. And here I am, secretly gripping my mom’s hand tighter, pretending it’s just casual affection, not a quiet act of emotional survival. Trying not to cry because that would mean I’ve really admitted I’m leaving.

But for now I am.
For now I am still here.
For now I am suspended in this fragile, stupidly beautiful pause.
For now I am not a college freshman or a stranger in a new city—I am just Devs, soaking this all in.

It’s like smelling old books and suddenly missing versions of yourself that used to exist in silence. Or hearing the rain and feeling like your soul just curled up in a blanket. Or when someone gives you flowers—not even for a reason, just because—and it’s so simple and lovely it makes you want to cry. Or hitting that perfect winner in tennis and thinking, damn right.

And oh—don’t even get me started on the way I long for someone who makes me feel like it’s okay to be soft. To bring out this feminine, dreamy, hopelessly romantic side of me I usually keep zipped up under sarcasm and independence. Or the sound of my people laughing. Or my dog’s chaotic little bark that somehow sounds like home. Or those rare, overwhelming tears of happiness—not sadness, not pain, just pure awe—that your brain produces when it realizes it’s capable of feeling this much beauty all at once.

But again, for now I am.
For now I am still here.
For now I am not gone yet.

And yeah, I will be someone else soon. I will be stretched by new cities, people, ideas. I remain, though—somewhere in all of it. And I will change—inevitably, beautifully, maybe even messily. But I’ll still be. Still me.

Some moments don’t last forever. And thank God they don’t, right? Because if they did, we wouldn’t even know they were moments. We wouldn’t get this aching, joyful appreciation of now. We’d just live in a flat line of contentment, and where’s the poetry in that?

Because if they do, you won’t appreciate them as much.

For I am.
For I will be.
For I will change.
But I will be okay.