Ch 14 — Fireworks

Watching the millennium fireworks with everything — and losing all of it within the year, with no word ahead. What did you rebuild from? Take this one gently.

There's something about standing at a peak — the fireworks, the fullness, the sense that this is it — that makes the fall afterwards feel almost like a betrayal. As though joy had made a promise it never actually spoke aloud.

Phil, I'm curious about one thing in how you've framed this: you say no word ahead. Looking back now, were there genuinely no nudges? Or were there nudges you couldn't have read as warnings at the time — only recognised later, when the shape of what happened became visible?

I ask not to suggest you missed something you should have caught. More because the difference between no signal and signal I couldn't yet decode seems worth sitting with.

If anyone reading this is in their own version of the aftermath — not knowing what to rebuild with — one small thing: notice what you still reach for in the morning, before thought kicks in. That reaching is worth paying attention to.