There I was on the phone with my brother, and in his most reliable broadside he said, “Dylan, you’ve gotta quit complaining about ur or do something. It’s been five years. “

I was flabbergasted. “Five years? You’ve gotta be kidding. No way.”

He told me a story. “That was five years ago,”

He said, “I know because I was standing at my desk with my back to a window with the setting sun shining through, listening to you tell that story as the sweat dripped down my back. I was in that office five years ago.” 

I recognized the story. It was my story, a distant memory. Then I recalled telling him. That story while sitting in that same green minivan talking on that same cell phone in front of that same red brick house next to that same lake after a day at that same job, five years prior. 

The realization rang through my consciousness like a church bell, loud and clear and luminous