Operating Limits

There are things I won’t return to,
not because they failed,
but because they belong
to a version of me
that no longer operates here.

I don’t frame that as loss,
and I don’t try to retrieve it,
I just acknowledge
that it sits outside the system
I’m living in now.

Some capacities don’t come back
once they’ve been exceeded,
and I don’t mistake that
for damage.

I treat it as information,
something learned too clearly
to be ignored,
and I don’t pretend
it can be unlearned.

These are the operating limits.
They remain.

I work within them
even when the space feels thinner,
even when the range is reduced
in ways I still notice.

There is a difference
between missing something
and refusing to reach for it,
and I stay on this side
of that distinction.

What I don’t do anymore
still carries weight,
not because it mattered more,
but because it mattered once
and now doesn’t apply.

I don’t replace it,
and I don’t downgrade it,
I let it exist
without relevance.

These are the operating limits.
They remain.

If there’s sadness here,
it isn’t dramatic,
it’s the quiet recognition
that not everything survives
being understood completely.

And if there’s calm,
it comes from knowing
exactly where the boundary is
and no longer testing it.

This is what holds.
This is what remains.

I stay within it.