A Step Back In Time
Sometimes the only way forward is to turn around and walk back into the lesson that built you
We think that time only moves one direction.
Forward.
Like some straight, unstoppable river dragging us with it whether we want it or not.
But sometimes—once in a lifetime—life forces you to walk back upstream.
Not because you want to relive the past.
But because some things can only be understood once you return to the place you abandoned.
It started on a quiet afternoon when the world felt heavier than usual.
The present felt like a heavy coat I didn’t remember putting on.
Deadlines, expectations, comparison, fear, noise, all stacked like bricks around my chest.
So I drove back to the town where I grew up.
Not for nostalgia.
But because I felt like I had lost the version of myself that once lived there.
The road felt like memory lanes disguised as asphalt.
Buildings were older.
The sky was the same color I remembered when I was nine.
Even the wind felt like it still carried the same direction.
I parked near the old train station—abandoned now—where I used to sit as a kid thinking the world was endless. Where I planned my future with a level of belief I would now label impossible.
Time didn’t live here anymore.
You could feel it.
Inside the station—the dust moved slower than breath.
Sunlight came in through cracked glass like gold falling from heaven.
And the old analog clock above the wooden ticket counter was frozen in the exact same time it broke at decades ago.
As if it waited for me.
As if time had been paused until I showed up again.
I sat on the same bench I sat on when I was 14… when I used to write fictional stories about who I would one day become. Back before I learned what self doubt was. Before I learned that not everyone claps for your dreams. Before I learned adulthood requires a certain type of armor.
And I realized something:
I walked forward for years… but in the process, I abandoned the foundation I was built on.
I used to dream from purity.
I used to believe without condition.
I used to think limits were just opinions.
Then life taught me fear.
Life taught me embarrassment.
Life taught me comparison.
Life taught me noise.
The world convinced me that becoming an adult meant shrinking the size of my dream into something socially acceptable.
But sitting there… inside this broken train station that never moved again… I felt my younger self sit beside me.
Not physically.
But spiritually.
He stared at me like someone examining the future version of himself.
And I hated how much I disappointed him.
He didn’t build me to be afraid.
He didn’t build me to doubt myself.
He didn’t build me to shrink.
He built me to explore.
He built me to take leaps so big the world thought I was crazy.
He built me to hold worlds in my imagination so large reality couldn’t intimidate them.
And I realized the real reason I needed to step back in time.
Not to revisit old memories.
But to retrieve the version of myself I abandoned along the way.
Sometimes we think growth means adding layers.
But sometimes growth means removing the ones that never belonged.
Sitting there—breathing in dust, sunlight, silence, memory—I understood something that adulthood hides:
Healing is not always forward movement. Sometimes healing is going backwards to the original blueprint.
The younger me wasn’t naive.
He wasn’t childish.
He was pure.
And I needed his fire again.
I stood up from that bench like someone standing up from a lifetime of doubt.
I walked back toward the exit of the station, but I felt different.
I didn’t feel small anymore.
I didn’t feel late.
I didn’t feel behind.
I felt restored.
Like I just rewound the tape to the exact moment where everything started.
There is a power in physically going back to the spaces that built you.
We forget this.
We think the past is irrelevant because we’ve already survived it.
But maybe some chapters of our life are not meant to stay closed.
Some are meant to be revisited—so we can pick up the pieces of ourselves we accidentally dropped.
As I stepped back outside, the sunlight felt warmer than earlier.
Not because anything changed around me—but because something changed inside me.
Forward suddenly didn’t feel like pressure.
Forward felt like possibility again.
“A step back in time” wasn’t stepping backward.
It was reclaiming direction.
I drove away from that station not like someone running from the past—but like someone carrying the past with purpose.
Because now I understood:
We never lose ourselves permanently.
We just drop pieces along the way.
And life eventually guides us back to where we left them.
Sometimes the journey forward starts with a step back.
And that is how time really works.
About the Creator
LUNA EDITH
Writer, storyteller, and lifelong learner. I share thoughts on life, creativity, and everything in between. Here to connect, inspire, and grow — one story at a time.
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