The Sand Between Chapters ⏳

Vol 1: Under the Same Sun

This is the season I stayed.

I thought this chapter would begin somewhere else.

In my mind, I could already hear the sound of new footsteps echoing through the hallways of my new apartment, feel the chill of a different season on my skin with leaves coloring the outside as they changed their hues, and watch the sunrise through the windows of a city I’d only ever imagined. I had it all carefully pictured. How it would feel to land, to unpack, to start afresh.

But life had other plans.

And somewhere in between all that longing and planning, I found myself here. Home.

I’ll admit, in the beginning, I felt like me staying was me being slowly pulled in by quicksand, only getting stuck with more effort. Like the pages I was meant to turn were still waiting for me somewhere far away. But what I’m learning is that staying can also be a kind of becoming. It’s the breath between chapters, the pause that lets you listen more closely. It’s the long walks, quiet mornings, and unhurried dreaming. It’s not the end. Instead, it’s the space in which I’m growing.

There is a quiet kind of beauty in rediscovering places you’ve walked a thousand times, especially in small details like how the light spills differently through the window now. In learning that the familiar can still surprise you. Morning routines I once rushed through now have a softness to them. Cafés I used to pass without looking have become tiny sanctuaries. And the desert sun that at times felt ordinary instead glows like something golden.

This season is teaching me to be present in places I once felt I’d outgrown and to hold the familiar gently, like something worth keeping. I’ve noticed in my life at times I find myself being pushed back to places I’ve once been when I have been positioned to move forward, but I’m realizing that right after those moments occur, it turns out they are instead catapults for something even greater than what I had in mind. And to trust that just because a chapter didn’t begin the way I envisioned doesn’t mean it isn’t still worth writing.

This is the season I stayed.

And somewhere under the same sun, between the sand and the stillness, I’ve begun to find magic I didn’t know was here.

See you in the next chapter.

Love, C.T.

(Volume 1: Under the Same Sun)