Behind the Puddle

There are things I would still like an answer to. Quite a few, actually. Some are small. Some aren’t. Why did that happen? Why did someone make that choice? What would have happened if I had chosen differently? Could I have done something differently? Why did something work for someone else and not for me? Why did someone leave? Why didn’t something last? Why this person? Why now? Why not?

Humans are very fond of answers. We like stories with explanations. Beginning. Middle. End. Problem. Resolution. Lesson. Preferably something meaningful we can carry forward, so the difficult part doesn’t feel completely wasted. Life is not always that cooperative.

Some things never make sense. Some conversations never happen. Some apologies never come. Some relationships end without resolution. Sometimes the person who could answer our question isn’t here anymore. Sometimes they are here and still can’t, or won’t, give us the answer we need. And sometimes there simply isn’t an answer big enough to make what happened feel acceptable.

I used to think peace came after resolution. Once I understand, I can be at peace. Once we talk about it. Once they apologize. Once I forgive. Once the situation changes. Once I know why. Then I can finally put it down. But what happens when the answer never comes? Do we have to carry the question forever?

Maybe peace asks something different. Not that we stop caring. Not that we decide what happened was okay. Not even that we forgive before we’re ready, or at all, if forgiveness isn’t ours to give. Maybe peace is allowing an unanswered question to remain unanswered without requiring ourselves to keep standing beside it every day.

That feels different from letting go. Maybe it’s setting something down. Not throwing it away. Just deciding I don’t need to carry it through every room I enter.

Behind the puddle, there are plenty of things I don’t understand. I don’t know where every animal goes. Why some return and others don’t. What happened to visitors I once saw regularly. Why one tree changes before another. Nature doesn’t explain itself to me. It doesn’t offer closure. Things arrive. Things leave. Things change. Life continues.

I can keep wondering. Curiosity belongs here. But I don’t have to turn every unanswered question into a problem I am responsible for solving. There are questions in my own life that may never have satisfying answers.

I can spend years circling them. Replaying conversations. Reconstructing events. Imagining different outcomes. Trying to understand another person’s choices. Trying to understand my own.

Sometimes reflection helps. Sometimes it teaches us something important. And sometimes we are simply walking the same circle again. Maybe peace is recognizing when we’ve stopped discovering anything new. There may never be a final answer.

But there can still be a next morning. A cup of coffee. Someone we love sitting nearby. Dogs needing something. Birds arriving. A ridiculous squirrel. A puddle reflecting the sky. A life still happening outside the question.

Peace may not be the moment everything gets resolved. Maybe it is the moment we realize resolution is not required before we are allowed to live fully again. I can carry what I know. I can acknowledge what I don’t. I can leave room for the possibility that I may understand something differently someday. And I can stop demanding that today provide an answer it doesn’t have.

Behind the puddle, autumn continues without explaining why every leaf falls when it does. Maybe I don’t need it to. Maybe some things can simply be true. Some things can remain mysteries. Some stories can have unfinished sentences. And perhaps peace can sit beside them anyway.