Isn't It Strange

Isn’t it strange?

Five years ago, I never would’ve imagined standing here today.

They said, “Make a vision board, map out your life.”

And I did. I planned every detail, traced every dream.

Yet life had other plans—

plans that tore through mine like a storm through glass.

Five years ago, I couldn’t have foreseen the funerals.

One by one, loved ones slipping away.

Three years ago, I never thought we’d be strangers,

that silence would echo louder than laughter ever did.

Isn’t it strange how relationships unravel,

how futures collapse,

how the blueprint you swear by turns to ash in your hands?

I am not her anymore.

The girl with wide eyes and certainty in her steps is gone.

I carry the weight of grief,

the taste of endings,

the scars of what I never asked for—

and yet, somehow, also the strength of survival.

Hi, stranger.

I’ve met so many versions of myself along the way.

Some died quietly, some fought to stay.

And now here I stand, unfamiliar even to you,

but realer than I have ever been.

Isn’t it strange?