#missysmadchallenge #085

In response to:

https://wp.me/pfIvEV-51s

The Memory That Found Me

It arrived without warning.

Not like a thought.
Not like imagination.

Like a memory.

I was standing in my kitchen when it hit—
the smell of salt air,
sunlight warming my shoulders,
laughter behind me that I somehow knew belonged to someone I loved.

But I had never been there.

I had never stood on that shoreline.
Never worn that dress.
Never lived that moment.

And yet—

I knew the way the sand felt under my feet.
I knew the rhythm of the waves like a song I had always carried.
I knew the person calling my name
even though I had never met them.

The feeling was too detailed to be fantasy.
Too intimate to be coincidence.

It wasn’t something I created.

It was something I remembered.

All day it followed me—
fragments slipping into my ordinary life.

A hand brushing mine that wasn’t there.
A voice echoing just beyond hearing.
A warmth in my chest that didn’t belong to this timeline.

And I realised something quietly terrifying.

What if this wasn’t a memory from my past?

What if it was from a life I never chose—
or one that was meant for me
but somehow slipped past?

Or worse—

What if it was still waiting?

That night, as I closed my eyes,
the memory returned.

Clearer.

Closer.

Real.

And for a moment,
I didn’t know which life I belonged to—

the one I was living,

or the one
that was remembering me.

— Maggie
The Afterlove Voice 💫