Soon, I’ll Walk Back In

 

Soon I'll Walk Back In

Soon enough, I’ll drive that stretch of familiar highway,

back toward the town where my name

used to mean something different.

I can already feel the weirdness of

being invited back not to preach or teach,

not to shepherd,

but to create, to show, to stand there

as the person I've become

after I stepped away.

I keep imagining the faces.

Some will stare, trying to reconcile

the man who once stood behind a pulpit or podium,

with the one who now stands behind a canvas,

or a script,

or whatever shape my work takes that day.

They’ll search for the old outlines,

the familiar vocal cadence,

the version of me they tucked away

into their memory years ago.

I wonder how it will feel

to walk older now into a place where I used to speak

with a different kind of authority,

one I no longer carry,

one I no longer want or need.

This time, I’m not arriving with answers,

or scripture, or texts,

or the weight of expectation.

I’m arriving with color, paint

with story,

with the strange freedom

that comes from rebuilding yourself

outside the frameworks time gave you.

There’s a quiet thrill in it,

but also a quiet ache.

Not regret, just the awareness

that I’m returning as someone

they didn’t see me becoming.

Someone I had to leave to find.

Maybe they’ll understand.

Maybe they won’t.

But I’ll be there anyway

not to prove anything,

not to correct the past,

Just to show what grew

after I stepped out of the role

that once defined me.

Soon, I’ll walk back in,

and the future version of me

will meet the old one

in the only place

that ever held both.

And it will be okay.