to be held by Her

I saw her today. Or maybe I didn’t. Maybe it was only the idea of her wearing a familiar face, moving through a very ordinary afternoon, pretending not to undo me.

She was struggling with a grocery bag, too full, cutting into her fingers like it didn’t know how precious it was to be held by her. I remember thinking how strange it is that the world keeps asking her to carry more than she should. I remember wanting to take the bag from her, not because it was heavy, but because loving her always felt like a reflex my body learned before my mind could stop it.

There was this one strand of hair. Just one. It had escaped, like it didn’t belong to the rest of her, like it was trying to tell me something I already knew. It kept falling into her face, soft and annoying and perfectly timed. She tried to shake it away, failed, smiled at her own failure. And God, in that moment, I wanted to be there so badly, not to say anything heroic, not to fix her life, just to slide that strand behind her ear. Just that. Just the smallest intimacy that feels larger than forever.

And that’s how I knew I was in love again.
Not loudly. Not dramatically. But quietly, inconveniently, like muscle memory. Like my hands remembered her even when my life had learned to live without her.

It’s confusing how love doesn’t ask for permission. How it returns without explaining where it’s been. How it doesn’t hurt, but it doesn’t heal either. It just exists. Standing across the street. Carrying groceries. Being human.

This isn’t sad. That’s the strange part.
It’s tragic in the way sunsets are tragic, because they don’t stay, not because they aren’t beautiful. I don’t mourn her. I don’t chase her. I just love her, again, in this soft, useless, impossible way.

And maybe that’s enough.
Maybe love doesn’t always need to be lived.
Sometimes it just needs to be noticed.

–aaditya.