I have spent years searching for you. Chasing shadows, following whispers, reaching for something that always seemed just a little out of reach. You appeared in fleeting moments—just long enough to make me believe I had found you—only to slip away again, leaving me grasping at the emptiness you left behind.

You are a trickster. A master illusionist. You let people think they’ll find you in a perfect tomorrow, in milestones yet to come, in someone else’s arms, in a future they can almost touch. But the moment they reach for you, you step just beyond their grasp.

But I see you now. And I know your secret.

You were never hiding in the one day or the if only. That was the mirage you created, wasn’t it? The illusion that if we just worked a little harder, waited a little longer, gave a little more, we’d finally hold you. But that day never really comes, and in the frustration of losing you, we push you even further away.

Because you don’t belong to those who chase. You belong to those who become you.

I found you in places I never thought to look. In a quiet presence beside someone who needed it. In a word of kindness spoken at just the right time. In a moment of laughter that needed no reason. In the stillness between heartbeats, when everything else fades and only being remains.

But you have rules, don’t you? You won’t stay where you aren’t valued. And you refuse to exist at the cost of my own peace.

Because your home was never in the future, never in someone else’s hands.

You were always here. Hiding in my heart—the only chamber without valves, open in all directions. The more I give, the more I receive. But never at the cost of emptying myself.

So here’s where the chase ends. I won’t run after you anymore. Instead, I will live in a way that keeps you here, where you’ve been all along.

Happiness… you were never lost. You were only waiting to be seen.

——Suvi’s Scribbles