A year is 8,760 hours.

I know this because I have felt nearly all of them.

Not evenly.
Not clearly.
But consistently aware of the space you occupy inside my days.

There were hours of intensity.
Hands.
Impact.
Kisses at the door.
Small talk that felt larger than it should have.

And then there were many more hours
where I did not know what any of it meant.

I never quite knew where I stood.
Only that I was still standing here.

You would arrive,
shift something in me,
and leave again
as if nothing had moved at all.

But it had.

I learned how to carry moments longer than they lasted.
How to replay tone, expression, touch
as if they could explain the parts you never said.

I told myself that quiet meant consistency.
That casual meant comfort.
That the way you came and went
was simply the way you moved through the world.

I never asked for more.

Not because I didn’t feel it,
but because I wasn’t sure it was mine to ask for.

So I let the hours do what they do.

I lived inside them.
I waited inside them.
I tried to understand my place inside them.

Some days I felt chosen.
Some days I felt convenient.
Most days I felt somewhere in between.

And still, those 8,760 hours mattered to me.

Because even without clarity,
even without definitions,
your presence shaped this year of my life.

Not loudly.
Not safely.
But undeniably.

I don’t know what this year was to you.

But I know what it was to me.

It was time spent caring quietly,
standing patiently,
and feeling deeply
without ever knowing if I was supposed to.

And that is the truth of these hours. I hope there is another 8,760 hours.

© 2026 Wynter Rayne. All rights reserved.