The Other Side of Almost

For years,

I mistook the unknown

for something waiting to hurt me.

I built walls around possibilities

and called them protection.

I let fear write stories

about things that had yet to happen,

and believed every word.

But then,

something shifted.

I found myself standing

in a moment I had spent years avoiding,

and the world did not collapse.

My hands grew steady.

My heart softened.

And for once,

the ending was kinder

than anything I had imagined.

There was no grand revelation,

no sudden becoming.

Just the quiet realization

that I had spent so long

afraid of a door

that opened into sunlight.

And perhaps the loveliest part

was not that I had been brave,

but that I had been wrong.

That life still holds

beautiful things

beyond the reach of my fear.