A Quiet Hello (and a Not-So-Quiet Heart)

It had been a long day. One of those marathon parenting days that starts with cereal on the ceiling and ends with you wondering if you’ve had actual water or just leftover sips of your newfound love, Pistachio Lattes. But finally – finally – as we were out enjoying the sunshine, the twins had fallen asleep in the stroller at the same time. A rare, sacred silence. I was walking slow, soaking in every blissful second of quiet, letting the rhythm of the sidewalk unwind my frayed nerves. My body was tired, but my brain was even more so – floating somewhere between “don’t think” and “maybe cry later.”

And then, like some sort of universal plot twist, I saw her. Her. The friend I hadn’t seen in years. The one I’d had a slow, messy falling out with. The kind where things were said and unsaid and left hanging somewhere in between. We hadn’t talked in ages. I honestly didn’t expect we ever would again.

We made eye contact. She looked surprised. I probably did too. But instead of pretending I didn’t see her (which I fully considered for a hot second), I took a breath and said, “Hey.” It was quiet, simple – but full of meaning. She smiled and walked over. And just like that, we were talking. Not about the past – at least not at first. Just real conversation. Small talk that felt big because of how much space there has been between us. The twins woke up mid-chat, blinking at the world like tiny, peaceful miracles, and I braced for chaos – but they just sat there, calm and curious, like even they knew this was a moment worth preserving.

We kept talking. Laughing. Not overdoing it. Just…being. Somewhere in there, I said, “We should get together sometime.” And she said (not verbatim), “Yeah. We should. It was meant to be that we ran into each other like this.”

Not out of obligation. Not as a social script. But because we meant it. Because maybe time had done its job. Maybe we were different now. Maybe we were the same where it mattered. And maybe, just maybe, this was a new beginning disguised as a casual sidewalk chat.

As we went our separate ways, the twins fully awake and now requesting snacks like tiny CEOs, I felt something in me shift. Like I’d released an old weight I didn’t know I was still carrying. Like I had made space for something new, something healing.

PS: Sometimes, peace sneaks in through the side door. It looks like a stroller nap, a surprise encounter, and the courage to say hello first. And sometimes, just sometimes, life gives you the chance to rewrite an ending you thought was already written. Take it.

With love,

Jenn