Candid Conversations Newsletter: The Edge of Time

The Edge of Time 

Looking out at the distance, far beyond my grasp, yet persistent in thought.

A quiet urge to master. To refine what endures. A steward in service, tasked with tending a seed, shielding it from the elements. Each phase requires something new:

Fostering. Protecting. Releasing.

Like a gardener pruning, cutting back what bears no fruit, and shaping what does so it may bear more. Even the seed must face pressure. 

Soil, weight, obscurity.

All before it breaks through. And once it does—something shifts. A transformation begins.

What Adaptation Really Looks Like 🔌

Adaptation has a shape.

It adjusts to the tides that shape human motion.

Are you going or coming?

Both.

Moving toward fate while arriving at awareness. An awareness of time, of self,

of place, of how you are seen versus who you know yourself to be.

Time. Space. Distance.

All relative, especially when filtered through two gazes. Which is why time isn’t just something we track. It’s something we navigate.

Time: A Measured Illusion ⌚

There is always more to say about time. Peel it back and you’ll find relativity. And beneath that, more layers.

Endless.

But in its simplest form, time is a standard. A shared agreement. Even though we each live inside it differently. Some chase it as if it were infinite. The more we chase, the more fleeting it becomes. 

We rush to the 11AM meeting only to realize we haven’t eaten. And hunger, as always, follows its own logic.

We don’t experience time equally, especially when some of it is spent translating yourself

for someone else’s comfort.

We don’t just exist in time. We navigate how time sees us. And sometimes, how it preserves us, through memory.

Ghosts of Former Selves 👻

While writing this, I kept returning to a memory. A familiar face. Some memories don’t wait to be recalled, they return uninvited, wrapped in sound and familiarity.

That’s what happened recently when I ran into an old acquaintance. We used to play pickup soccer years ago. It was the kind of friendship that never left the field. Back then, I had a nickname.

He called it out with joy, as if no time had passed. Heads turned. Some confused, some amused.

But I understood. It wasn’t just a name. It was a timestamp. A version of me, preserved in his memory.

I matched his energy, but from a quieter place. Because I am more now. Always been. And now more than ever, not all of that “more” is visible. It never was.

Some of it had to be:

Negotiated.

Translated.

Made palatable.

Made safe.

My time has been spent refining how I move through rooms. Wearing many hats, sometimes all at _{once. To} him, I was a familiar face. But that name, spoken aloud, carried me back. Not just to the field, but to the space where perception and self intersect. And that space—between who we are and who we’re remembered to be—is crowded.

Multiplicity and the Perception Trap 🪤

This wasn’t a rare occurrence. I’ve seen it happen elsewhere too. My older siblings still see me as the little brother. Not the man I’ve become. My high school friends still see me in epaulettes and khakis, and not the man.

Both versions coexist. But they are not the same. I understand how those spaces/identities can offer solace

and a space of safety, a space reminiscent of a simpler, safer time. And that word, space, holds dimension.

Depth. Duality.

Carrying double consciousness 🎭

means being in two rooms at once. The one you’re in and the one others expect you to inhabit.

You learn how to shapeshift. How to tone down or turn up depending on who’s watching.

Eventually, you start watching yourself too. 

What does it mean to be given space

in memory,

in identity,

in transformation?

It means being seen

not just for who you were

but for who you had to become.

To survive.

To belong. To be seen with grace, not just recognition. And to hold grace for yourself, as you continue becoming.

The Gaze and the Becoming 🌓

When we honor both depth and clarity, we begin to see ourselves not just reflected, but whole.

We are shaped by what we’ve lived. Forged by what we inherited and what we chose to resist.

We carry multiple selves. Not because we are fragmented but because the world required us to stretch to fit.

Even love asks us to stretch. And sometimes to let go. Letting go doesn’t erase the time shared. It reframes it.

The Space Between Then and Now 🌌

A time that came.  That was shared. 

We learned.

We dreamed.

We imagined a future spacious enough for two stories to unfold side by side. But like seasons do, that time shifted. Spring bloomed into summer,

full, radiant, alive. 

The bees were busy.

The sun was generous.

We thought it would last.

But even the brightest summers yield to autumn. And then to winter.

Seasons change. So do people.

If evolution is part of the natural order, why should love or intimacy be exempt?

Double Consciousness in Intimacy ➿

In the presence of intimacy, we often become two things at once. Who we were and who we are becoming.

We watch ourselves through the eyes of someone who once knew us. Sometimes better than we knew ourselves.

But not always as we are now. To be held in intimacy while evolving is to live in tension— to be understood in theory, but misread in the details. That too is adaptation. To feel seen, and still feel the need to explain.

It is a kind of closeness that both comforts and confines.

Because even in love, even in the softest spaces, not every version of us has room to breathe.

That’s the complexity of double consciousness in intimate relationships, to feel known and quietly grieve the parts that no longer fit that knowing. And still, to find gratitude in the journey.

Two Passing Ships: Loving Without Possession 🚢

With enough distance, you become grateful for the road traveled. For the time shared. For the space co-created. Now, we are passing ships on parallel paths that stretch toward infinity. Close. but no longer converging. 

This isn’t failure. It’s form.

Unspoken knowledge carries its own wisdom.

A lesson dressed in silence. A truth wrapped in ambiguity.

Was it the means or the ends?

Both. Always both.

Loving from a distance is not love denied. It’s love transformed. Love, appreciated.

And intimacy, reframed.

Space, Memory, and the Right to Evolve

Maybe the most honest intimacy is the one that honors change. The kind that doesn’t cling to a former version but blesses the one you’ve grown into. To allow someone the dignity to evolve into a future that no longer includes you. Not because love failed, but because life expanded.

When we can hold love and release together, we free each other from the trap of permanence.

We stop mistaking presence for connection. We stop confusing familiarity for truth.

We begin to understand that love, too, requires adaptation. And maybe then, we can begin to understand both love and intimacy for what they are:

A season.

A mirror, and a window.

A grace, that forces openness.