The first day of the year always feels a little like standing at the edge of something infinite—an empty page waiting for ink, a road stretching ahead through unknown landscapes. Fireworks crackle in bursts nearby and far off, their sharp pops and fading echoes vibrating in the cold night air. The sparks cast fleeting shadows on the walls, shimmering across the furniture, as my husband and eldest son murmur and laugh softly, voices weaving a warm undercurrent through the quiet. Across the room, my little son sleeps, his slow breaths a gentle rhythm beneath the hush. The faint scent of winter—smoke curling from distant chimneys, pine lingering in the air—clings to the windowpane. I watch the flicker of light dance across the ceiling, letting it mingle with the sound and stillness, lingering on the space between what I assumed and what actually unfolded over the past years. At the start of those years, I believed time would be kind, slow, forgiving. I believed there would always be room ...
I am Teynmoli Subramaniam and this is where I write.