I have a little place tucked deeper in the city. Far enough to feel like a small trip away, a sense of somewhere else when I cannot travel all the way home. My family built it, and there is something in its old-world charm that reminds me of Europe, a pocket of the Balkans hidden inside Pensacola.

I come here to think. To be somewhere that is not my home, but still my own. It is quiet. It lets me step out of my daily life for a while.

I thought I would have this place just for myself. A quiet piece of the world where only my footsteps echo. But life moves in small surprises.

The neighbor came first as a feeling. I would sit outside in the evenings and sense him even when I could not see him. There is only a fence between us, not high at all, just enough to mark where his balcony ends and mine begins.

What caught me first was the way his voice moved through the air. The way he shifts between languages when he talks on the phone. The way he welcomes people who visit. So many tongues passing through that thin line of wood. Slavic, Albanian and Italian words, hints of others, bits of laughter and phrases I know so well. It pulled me in. It felt like a piece of home sat beside me in this city where I am otherwise alone.

So I would sit there, quiet in my small meditation. I could feel my thoughts lean over that fence, curious. Watching the cigarette smoke drift from his side to mine. Listening for small clues of who he is.

Sometimes I think about it like a frog on glass. Not because a frog came to me, but because the image feels true. When I see a frog pressed to a window, I wonder if it sees inside. I wonder if it thinks about the room and the people, or if it stays content outside and slips away when it has seen enough.

In that same way, I sat there, pressed to the edge of my small fence. Watching. Wondering. Imagining his world like a room behind a pane I could knock on if I chose. Wondering what it would be like to step through.

And maybe that wondering pulled me closer. Maybe the pull was stronger because of what I long for. A family. A closeness. A piece of the Balkans when I cannot reach all the way home. Maybe my mind spun the odds into something bigger, whispering what are the chances that the love I have asked for sits just on the other side of this thin line of wood.

We started talking over that fence. Small words at first, like neighbors in an old story. His voice felt familiar even when the words were new. He invited me over, and I crossed that thin line.

Inside his space, the air changed. We talked about small things at first, but it moved deeper. He told me about his childhood, the places in him that still feel empty, the anger that flares when old pain rises. I listened because I know those shadows too. I have carried them. I have sat alone with them and turned them soft inside me.

As I stepped back to my side of the fence, I hugged him tightly. I felt the cross he wore around his neck pressed between us. I remember pointing to it, reminding him to look inward to God for the answers his emptiness was asking for. I did not want him to feel abandoned or rejected, because that was never what I was doing. I wanted him to remember he is never truly alone and that there is a way through.

When I stepped back into my own space, it felt awkward for a moment but good inside. I did not lose any piece of myself in that crossing. I did not fall back into old holes. The old ache could not fool me this time.

Still, part of me asks why. Why did life dress up my old wounds in a new voice and call it fate? Why did it pull me close with the scent of home, then peel it back to show the same raw place I thought I had healed?

He cracked open an old wound I thought I had buried — the wound of abandonment. For a moment, he reminded me how quickly longing can wear the mask of love, how easily I could stay inside the story I had built. I wanted the fantasy to be true. I wanted us both to slip through the glass and find each other whole on the other side.

But when I crossed over, I found his shadows waiting. I found my old ache asking to be useful again. I saw how easy it is to step back into familiar pain and call it closeness.

Sometimes I wish the frog could slip through the glass and find a perfect world waiting. But maybe the glass is mercy. Maybe the fence is grace.

If my healing is true, then the lesson is not to step through again. The lesson is that I can stand here, curious and open, but I do not have to lose myself for the same old wound. I do not have to mistake longing for love. I do not have to mistake familiarity for fate.

Maybe my only task was to sit with him for a moment. To offer presence. To be a soft mirror for his shadows. To remember that just because I can hold that pain does not mean I must live in it again.

So when I stand at the fence now, I feel it. The pull. The ache. The old dream flickering like a candle. And I feel my freedom too. I do not have to step through just because I wonder. I do not have to lose myself to keep someone company in their darkness.

Longing is not wrong. Love is not wrong. But sometimes the deepest love is to stand still. To bless what is on the other side. To stay whole.

The fence is thin. The glass is clear. The door is always open. So is my freedom to stay home inside myself.

Maybe you have felt this too. Maybe you have pressed your heart to the glass and found the view more beautiful than the crossing.

When the pull comes, ask what it is made of. Is it love, or an old wound wanting to be touched again?

The fence. The glass. The door. And always, your freedom.

Between the Fence and the Glass