it's strange how the urge to retreat still rises, a familiar tide, even when the current pulling me forward feels so much stronger. the old tension in my shoulders used to be a permanent fixture, a constant brace against the unknown, but now it only surfaces as a brief, almost phantom twitch. the curtain still shimmers, sometimes, but i find myself reaching for it, not to pull it tighter, but to feel the fabric between my fingers, a test of its give. and sometimes, that touch is enough to remember that the fear used to feel like a solid, unmoving wall, but now it's just a memory that my skin remembers, not my will.