I remember that place.

The journey there was tedious; I felt time slip away from me as I lost control of it. I felt stuck in a loop of disappointing hope. 

It started to become a place in my mind that I feared would never come into existence. 

But after a swift turn down one road, something felt different—it felt tranquil. 

I had no sense of how far away we were, but as I looked past the mountains of trees shielding small streams from the sun, my mind left my body. It took me to the place I saw in front of me, a place that I called home before I even knew what it was. 

I remember that place—but I don’t exactly remember the events of which occurred there. 

I remember the laughter that frolicked through the cold, crisp air at night. I remember watching the sun peek over the horizon from a height I never thought I would reach. I remember the individuality of each rock that paved the paths. I remember walking those paths without a worry of what would happen. I remember watching the seasons change in a period of time that held so much promise. 

I remember disconnecting from a world that caused me so much unease. 

I remember connecting with you. 

We lost countless hours of sleep from trying to find our way back home; we were perennially lost in the forest engulfing us. We always found ourselves back home by the end of the night, but it still feels like a part of us never made it back. 

The sun was never ours for the taking, but we always had the moon. It was the one thing that protected the piece of us that felt undefeatable. 

Perhaps we left that piece of ourselves out there on purpose. We needed a reason to stay in our routine; we needed a reason to retrieve that piece. We needed a reason to get lost again. 

We needed a reason to leave everything behind, just for a few hours. 

We created a home for ourselves there, but there is the only place that home exists. We are distant now. I see you so often, yet the piece of ourselves we left behind was the piece of ourselves that kept us close. 

I established a hiraeth for a place I barely knew simply because of you—a hiraeth that grew into something including the you I once knew.