Born Today?

There are debts that have nothing to do with money and everything to do with the promises you made when you thought you had more time than you actually do. Someone believed in you before you believed in yourself, or you said yes to something that mattered when saying yes was still easy, or you took up space in a room and people rearranged themselves around the possibility you represented. These debts accumulate quietly, and they come due not when a calendar says so but when you realize that the person who made the promise and the person you are now live in the same body. The year ahead asks you to pay what you owe, not because anyone is asking for it, but because carrying unpaid debts changes how you move through rooms and how you meet your own eyes in mirrors.