was it just a mirage

There was a moment —
a whole era, really —
where I didn’t ask myself where this was going.

I wasn’t manifesting a future, overanalyzing every word, or searching for the cracks before they even formed.
I was just there.
In it.
Letting it be what it was.

And what it was…
was beautiful.

Not in the fireworks-and-fairytales kind of way.
But in the real kind of way.

The kind where someone plans the dinner, picks the music, drives you around their city like it’s yours too.
The kind where you laugh with strangers who feel like friends and dance with people who make you feel like you deserve a moment to enjoy the night.

The kind where someone sees you — really sees you — and doesn’t flinch.

For once, I wasn’t trying to control the plot.
I wasn’t rehearing lines or writing an ending that hadn’t even been earned yet.

I was just… alive.
Messy, sunlit, a bit chaotic, but fully in the moment.

He gave me space to be soft.
To feel joy without explanation.
To be included without having to ask.

And I won’t lie —
there were tiny flashes of tenderness that almost felt too good to be this casual.

Compliments I wasn’t used to hearing.
Moments I thought about twice.
Crystals gifted. Songs played.
Silences that felt like safe places instead of tension.

But even then, I didn’t call it anything.
It didn’t need to be labeled anything to be enjoyed.

It was something that felt like what I’d been waiting for:
Not the person, necessarily.
But the peace.
The permission to enjoy someone without needing them to be everything.

Maybe that’s the moral of the mirage.
It’s not that it wasn’t real — it was.
But it didn’t ask to be forever.
It just asked to be felt.

And I did.

So no, I don’t regret it.
I don’t mourn it.
I don’t even miss it in a longing kind of way.
It just sits in my chest like a little time capsule of who I was — and who I got to be — during that chapter.

Was it just a mirage?

Or was it a friendship dressed up in romance?
A few days of warmth wrapped around a much bigger season of change?
A reminder that I can live loudly, laugh fully, and trust my gut — even when the destination is unclear.

Maybe that’s all it ever needed to be.
Not the final stop.
Just proof that this version of me — the one who shows up, who says yes, who buys a plane ticket or gets in the car for a road trip on a moments notice — she exists.

And she’s not a mirage at all.

And maybe, he wasn’t a mirage either.

Maybe he was exactly what he seemed: kind, curious, a little chaotic in the best way — a lovely soul who showed up in a season where I needed softness, laughter, and a little reminder that new magic still exists.

Maybe I’ll never know what it all meant or his real feelings in it all.
Maybe the truth lived in the subtext, or maybe it shifted the same way sunlight does when you blink.

But that’s okay. I wasn’t there to solve anyone or anything.

When things got hazy, when the edges of whatever this was started to blur — we just let the silence speak kindly, and met each other where we were.

No pressure. No promises. Just presence when we needed.

And honestly? I’d relive it again. Not to change the ending, but to feel the lightness once more.

Because if this was just a mirage, it was the kind that leaves you a little better than it found you.
And if it wasn't…
well that’s between me, the universe, and the crystal that was once carried — and maybe still is, or maybe served it’s purpose too.