My back hurts. Every small movement feels risky, and sharp pain strikes out of nowhere. I can’t help but regret ignoring this problem for so long. I’m holding on, waiting for tomorrow, hoping the pain will ease a little, enough to feel like myself again. Between these waves of discomfort, I flip through old diary entries. I find a note I wrote a few days ago, something from that astrology app that sends daily messages and little bits of advice tied to the stars. This one caught my attention:

“Welcome to the beginning of everything.”

I’ve had so many beginnings in my thirty-six years, but I’ve never felt like I’ve had enough. I’ve never wanted to stop moving forward, even when life felt messy. Now it’s February, still the start of the year, and this chapter feels bigger, more important than usual. I don’t know what the “everything” in that message means. I don’t know if this is the start of it. But in that moment, reading those words, it felt like the pieces of my chaotic life map were starting to connect. That map makes me think of Jamaa el-Fna, the main square in Marrakech. It’s just an open space, but somehow, it’s packed with life, noise, colors, smells, people, food, and energy. There’s no real structure, but it’s alive and always changing.

When you’re in the square, it’s overwhelming. Just when you think you’ve figured it out, it shifts. My life feels like that too, full of scattered moments and events that don’t always make sense at first. Slowly, though, they’re starting to come together. The map keeps growing, adding new places, new paths, and new surprises. Sometimes I have to revisit old routes, but even then, I see things I didn’t notice before, a new detail, a different color, or a feeling I wasn’t ready to understand.

That’s when I feel nostalgia. For the things that were, for the things that are, and for the things I might never see again. Maybe that’s what beginnings are about, not just starting something new but seeing what’s always been there in a different way.