THE BEGINNING OF NOTHING
CHAPTER ONE :
The Beginning of Nothing
Some stories begin with a birth.
Others begin with a death.
Mine began somewhere in between.
There was no dramatic announcement. No warning that the life I imagined was slowly separating from the life I would have to live. No single morning when I opened my eyes and understood that some dreams would remain exactly where I had left them.
There were only days.
Ordinary days that looked so much like one another that I almost missed the changes happening inside them.
I used to think a beginning was a promise. That once something started, it would move forward. That if you wanted something badly enough, worked for it, prayed for it, and held on long enough, life would eventually recognise your effort.
I have since learned that life does not always explain its decisions.
Sometimes it closes a door without telling you why.
Sometimes it leaves you standing in front of an open one, wondering whether you are brave enough to enter.
And sometimes, it gives you something you never asked for and waits to see what you will do with it.
I did not understand any of this when my story began.
I only knew that there were things I wanted, places I wanted to see, and a version of myself I was determined to become.
I had a picture of my future in my head. It was not perfect, but it was mine. I could almost see the details. I knew the direction I wanted to take, even if I did not yet know every step required to get there.
What I did not know was that the distance between a dream and its fulfilment could become a place of its own.
A place where time passes, people change, and the person you thought you would become begins to feel like a stranger.
I would start again more times than I cared to admit.
New plans. New hopes. New versions of the same old determination.
Each time, I told myself that perhaps this was the beginning that would finally stay.
Each time, I was afraid to ask what would happen if it did not.
There is a peculiar kind of silence that follows a disappointment. The world continues. People talk about their plans. Someone somewhere is celebrating a success you once imagined for yourself.
And you learn to exist in the space between what happened and what you thought would happen.
For a long time, I believed that space was proof that something was wrong with me.
I did not yet know that the things we fail to understand can sometimes become the very things that change the direction of our lives.
I did not know where my story was taking me.
I did not know what I would eventually have to leave behind, what I would have to learn alone, or what an unfamiliar opportunity would ask of me.
I certainly did not know that one day, a word I had never placed at the centre of my future would begin to change everything.
Beauty.
For now, it was only a word.
And I had no idea what it would cost me to understand it.
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