Some moments pass quickly, while others stay with us.

They return unannounced, sometimes in the middle of a conversation, sometimes while doing something ordinary, sometimes after years of silence. They hit with a clarity that feels disproportionate to the moment itself. 

Nothing monumental has happened, no great shift has taken place. And yet the memory presents itself, urgently, demanding attention.

These memories do not always represent the most dramatic moments in our lives. Often, they are the small ones, like a glance across a room. A gesture that did not match the words surrounding it. A decision that felt minor at the time, but never quite settled comfortably into the mind.

We don’t remember these moments because they were large. 

We remember them because they were formative.

They marked a change, sometimes subtle, perhaps almost invisible, yet very real. They revealed something about who we were, what we valued, what we feared, or perhaps what we learned to protect. 

Because the shift was pivotal, even if we did not realize it at the time, the moment did not fade.

At the time, these moments may have felt insignificant or confusing. It took years for them to become intelligible. The memories waited until we were ready to understand them or, at least, consider them, then arrived unannounced.

We carried these moments, quietly, perhaps for decades, because they required understanding, interpretation, resolution. They now demand attention because they are reference points in our lives. Markers of growth. Anchors of identity.

They remind us where our instincts were right, and where they were not. They show us where patterns began and ended. They reveal the first time we sensed something we could not yet articulate, and the last time we did something that undid us.

They stay with us because they mattered—then, later, and now.