It was that I could finally care without imagining every problem was mine to fix.

At home, I put my keys beside the wooden box and took a moment to look at the handwriting on its lid.

I didn’t open it.

I didn’t need to.

I knew what was inside, and I knew what it had come to mean.

I had spent so many years trying to earn the right to rest that I sometimes still caught myself rehearsing excuses for a quiet evening.

On those nights, I remembered the girl who had asked for a smile as though she was requesting the most ordinary thing in the world.