I was only looking for a quiet playlist when I found an album I used to loop in my little flat in London. The moment the first notes played, I was back by that window: empty beer bottles from Ann's place, a few flowers I picked up on the walk home after class, and beside them, candles burnt down to their last flicker.

I spent most of my days in front of a £19 Ikea table; countless meals on that tiny white tabletop, countless mornings full of hope, and nights wandering.  

The week before I left London, I couldn't stop crying in an Uber home. The car drove past Trafalgar Square, the riverbank I walked every evening, my art studio, the pubs I always passed but never entered. I realized then - every step forward was an act of mourning, mourning the things I had lost, the things that had slipped away.

There are moments in a life you only recognize afterwards as the turning points. Rarely a perfect one, never some vast, calculated decision. You were simply pushed one step forward, and only in looking back do you realize the other path has already gone under.

I want everything in my one life, and wanting divides me. To have one thing is to give up another. To be one self is to give up another. 

This isn’t an age to mourn. I should be looking forward, building something. And yet, I can’t help but turn back - to that little apartment I lived in for two years as if it were still there waiting for me to return. The bed still creased from an afternoon nap, the wind slipping through the window, the plants haven’t been watered in a while, breakfast dishes in the sink, and my fuzzy jacket still draped over the back of my chair.

Last Saturday, I had so much joy in my heart, but with no one to share it with, it sat too long inside me, smothered and stale. So all I could do was walk, letting the smell of it scatter a little before I got home.

I was walking down the street when it hit me - I had done it again. Once more, I had arrived in a new country, alone. Once more, I was trying to build a small castle for myself. This shouldn't be easy. And yet somehow, I feel like I'm supposed to carry it lightly.

London is a dream that I failed. The thought of it always carried a quiet ache, a weight behind my ribs. I don’t know if it’s London I long for, or the 21-year-old version of myself who once lived there. The girl who stared at the river for too long, who lost sleep countless nights, who cried over the tragedies of strangers, who roamed the streets at 2 AM with friends talking and laughing like tomorrow doesn’t exist.

Back then, the future felt too far away. I only wanted to take life one day at a time, to feel as much as I possibly could, and then—

Then, I don’t know.

You wouldn’t see me from the moon. You wouldn’t see me over the earth. In fact, even if you were just 500 meters away, I would disappear. I have become part of the landscape, another figure in the crowd, a moving silhouette. 

Someday in the future, this moment, too, will be remembered. The plants in front of me, the warm light under my microwave, this very room -  will become another dream I can never step into again, a memory lingering in my longing.

I always think I am already an old woman lying in bed, recalling everything happening now. 

I am only passing through.