I always thought of time as something reliable and unchangeable. It hummed along, marking the moments of our lives, a steady companion. Then, everything shifted. It’s strange how clear everything used to be before it all blurred together in this odd loop.
My concrete situation was typical enough; I lived in a small townhouse on the fringes of nowhere, neither city nor country. It was just me and my daughter, Ava. She was at that age where curiosity didn’t yet equate to rebellion, a sweet spot I cherished amid the mundane challenges of single parenting. I often found comfort in the simple routine: breakfast in the early light spilling across the kitchen table, the rush to find mismatched socks, the soft click of the closing door as I sent her off to school.
Days passed predictably, until I noticed that familiar things started feeling less familiar. It was as if someone had bent the rules of my life without bothering to explain the game. I first noticed it one chilly morning when winter hadn’t quite let go yet. I sat with Ava at the breakfast nook, catching a few rays of sunlight. As I reached for the orange juice, I watched her spoon cereal into her mouth, her cheeks still slightly flushed from sleep.
The day continued normally until I found myself back at the nook, reaching once more for the orange juice. It couldn’t be real; I assumed it was simple déjà vu. Shrugging it off, I went about my tasks, but the perturbation lingered in the back of my mind, a tickle that wouldn’t go away.
At first, others didn’t notice. In my attempts to share this bizarre experience—scrambles of repeated school drop-offs and the endless loop of packing lunches—I was politely laughed off. Those who listened at all thought it a weird stress-induced blip. So, I endured quietly, confused and isolated by something no one else could witness.
It was extraordinarily lonely, not being believed. You learn to carry burdens alone, a skill honed by the skepticism of others. I tried to stay stoic, but as the weeks wore on without any sign of it stopping, each morning began to feel heavier. How could I explain a life that no longer felt linear, and worse, one that was only repeating one direction backward? I found myself experiencing the same moments, over and again, growing desperate for anyone to understand.
There was a shift, a defining moment in this bewildering ordeal that changed its grip on me. It was on one of those infinitely familiar salad days. I stood by the crosswalk, having already lived these small moments more times than I cared to remember. Ava was with me as usual, holding my hand, backpack slung carelessly over one shoulder—oh, how I wished that carefree hold meant my troubles had been misplaced along the way.
As we stood there about to cross, a man on a cell phone stepped in front of us without seeing; he barely avoided a collision. In that fleeting moment of shared surprise, I caught a fleeting look in the man’s eyes—a flicker of recognition, of someone who had seen that very scene unfold before.
That look was everything. It meant that someone else might understand, might believe. Against better judgment, I tailed him to a small bookstore where he paused to peruse some titles. Observing his gestures, his faltering glance over printed words he wasn’t absorbing, I could tell he too was plagued by something unordinary. But my shy attempts to connect were rebuffed, leaving me desperate for insight yet relieved by the possibility of shared sanity.
Regaining composure, an idea dawned upon me—a means of coping even if escape seemed impossible. Instead of fixating on the repetition, I began to cherish my time with Ava. I slowed down, savoring each instance of affection and frustration, capturing them in notes and sketches. Even as those days circled back into themselves, they gifted me the chance to reaffirm my love for her repeatedly, profoundly.
Yet, by some ironic twist of fate or the very nature of this anomaly, the inconsistency began fraying its own loop. I woke up one day, greeted by the sunlit kitchen where the clock’s relentless hands began to move forward. It was both a joyful release and a heart-wrenching goodbye to those intricacies I had grown to embrace.
Living again in linear time, I often wonder about that man and if his journey also found a resolution. I never encountered him again, but I owe him so much for validating my reality. The lesson, however, remained, carved deeply into my soul: to find grace amid turmoil, to discover peace within chaos, and to hold deeply to those we love, as time—however twisted—will never repeat in the same way twice again.
