They tried to keep me here.

It’s all I can think of sometimes as I sift through the silverware drawer that used to be mine, in what used to be my home. It’s like entering a time capsule, one in which nothing has changed, as if two people haven’t become ghosts.

I sometimes find myself pacing back and forth between the kitchen and the library. I often sit outside on the double wooden swing, the one my father used to join me on, before he’d complain about the cost of it.

Like a hermit crab outgrowing a shell, then crossing its path over and over, it causes a bit of reflection. The woman who made this her home and stifled her soul to fit into a smaller space needed to be awakened.

What was it that awakened me?

There had been so many seeds planted over the years, I had wondered which was the first sprout to breach the soil. Once the cultivation began, the weeds had become overgrown, and there was no going back to that short manicured lawn.

They tried to keep me there. It’s sometimes all I can think of when remembering what I had to do to get here.