a sudden flush across my cheeks, like someone flicked a hidden switch and the internal heat just rushed, it wasn't fear or shame or even that familiar spike of disappointment, just this pure, unadulterated sensation of being struck, and for a brief, bewildering instant, i was back there, a whole entire year collapsing into a single breath, the sunlight then had a particular quality against the asphalt that mirrored how it looks now in chicago, but the ache of it, the raw, demanding ache, that used to feel like it owned me, it used to clamp down in my jaw until my teeth hurt, but it isn't like that anymore, it's just this incredibly vivid, almost hyper-real flash, a kaleidoscope of moments that used to leave me breathless from a very different kind of internal oxygen deprivation, and now it's just… a whisper against the eardrums, a strange, rich chord that vibrates for a second and then dissolves back into the summer air, and it's wild how the very fabric of my body remembers the contours of that particular anguish, the way it used to settle in my spine like a lead mantle, but it's not pressing down anymore, it's just a shape, an artifact, something almost beautiful in its intensity, a testament to how far the current has carried me, truly, how effortlessly i glide now through these sudden currents of the past without even feeling the need to brace for impact, just watching them pass like incredible clouds in a vast, blue sky.