Proving Ground

Is all really said and done as memories fade
and all you were all about goes on without you
like a distant parade?

Will now be an empty time?
Will passions grow cool
as all that reminds you of...
just leaves you longing for, wishing to
abandon where you are, get up and run away
where no one else can see,
and you can be alone with all the things you've known
and all you hoped to be?

It's hard just to carry on, and harder to thrive,
when it feels like you don't belong here,
little makes you come alive, and everything is pain;
a mix of hope and grief for things lost and yet to be.
It is not said and done, nor has it just begun.
It's something in between.

Is there a reason, a meaning for this time?
A purpose hard to understand?
Will it be meaningless; a chase after the wind
or be a proving ground somehow in the end?

Now is not an empty time
but it's so hard to see:
You're not who you were before.
You're not who you will be.