The Curve

November 12, 2025

I’ve always imagined life as a train journey, the kind that doesn’t stop too often, just keeps moving quietly through changing landscapes. I don’t remember when I first boarded it. Maybe it was the day I took my first small step into school, clutching my mother’s hand a little too tight, or maybe it was the moment I realized the world existed beyond my home. Back then, I didn’t think about the direction or the destination. I was too busy staring out the window, curious about everything that passed by.

Every year, I move to a new bogie. That’s how it’s always been. You don’t question it. You just pick up your bags, wave goodbye to the last compartment, and walk ahead. Forward, always forward.

In the first few bogies, I was never alone. Those compartments were full of life, bursting with noise and laughter, the kind that filled every corner until silence simply couldn’t exist. We used to talk over each other, sing out of tune, scribble on walls that weren’t ours, and make promises we believed would last forever. I was always the one in the center, the planner, the loud one, the person who made sure no one felt left out. Back then, life felt like one long conversation that didn’t need a full stop.

But somewhere along the tracks, the laughter began to fade. Friends started drifting into other compartments, some ahead, some behind, and suddenly, the noise that used to comfort me began to feel distant. I’d look around and see people still sitting beside me, still talking, still existing, but somehow, I felt lonelier than I ever had before. It’s strange how you can be surrounded by people and still feel like the quietest one in the room.

Still, I kept moving forward. That’s what we’re told to do, grow, achieve, keep up. Every new bogie had new faces, new responsibilities, new versions of myself. And with each move, I carried less.

One year, I left behind my paints, too childish, I told myself. Another year, my camera, too time-consuming. Then went my curiosity, my slow mornings, my art. Piece by piece, I traded color for clarity, spontaneity for structure. Even laughter started to feel like a task that needed scheduling.

When I joined Let’s Enterprise, the rhythm of the train changed completely. It became faster, louder, filled with an energy I had never known before. The walls of that bogie pulsed with ambition, ideas flying, projects taking shape, deadlines ticking like the steady beat of a drum. For the first time, I felt like I belonged to something bigger than myself. I learned how to walk into rooms full of strangers and still hold my ground, how to take on work that scared me, how to trust my voice when it wanted to hide.

But somewhere between confidence and capability, I started losing touch with gentleness. I became the girl who could lead teams, who could take decisions, who could keep up with everything, except herself. The train was still full of people, but I wasn’t laughing the same way. I was there, but not fully there. My friends would talk, and I’d find my thoughts drifting toward unfinished to-do lists or unread messages.

I became so good at moving forward that I forgot how to pause.

Then, one day, something unexpected happened, the train curved. It wasn’t a sharp turn or a sudden stop, just a soft, quiet U-shaped bend that made me look up from my laptop for the first time in a long while. And in that moment, through the wide window, I saw it, the long stretch of bogies behind me.

For years, I thought I’d left them behind. But there they were, still moving with me, still part of the same journey. I could almost see the versions of myself sitting by the windows, one sketching skies, one laughing too loudly, one crying softly into her pillow, one dreaming about things that no longer made sense but still felt alive.

And they weren’t alone. I saw faces I hadn’t thought of in ages, friends who once filled my days with noise and warmth. The ones who taught me how to be brave, how to love people deeply, how to stay soft even when life got loud. They looked smaller from where I stood, but they were still there.

So I started walking back, one bogie at a time. Not to live there again, but to remember.

From the first bogie, I took curiosity, the kind that doesn’t chase results, just wonder. 

From another, I took laughter, loud and messy, the kind that fills a room until everyone forgets what they were sad about. 

From another, I took belonging, the kind that reminds you it’s okay to need people. And from all of them, I took peace, not the kind that demands silence, but the one that can exist quietly even inside noise.

When I returned to the middle of the train, I paused. For the first time, I could see both directions, the bogies I’d passed through and the ones still waiting ahead. Behind me were colors and chaos, ahead of me, structure and ambition. And right here, where I stood, was the curve, the place where everything met.

I realized then that I was never losing people, or versions of myself. I was just losing sight of them. They’d all been traveling with me the whole time, the artist, the dreamer, the leader, the friend, all sitting quietly, waiting for me to notice them again.

Now, when I move, I move differently. I don’t rush through compartments. I don’t count how many are left. I travel lighter, but not emptier.

And this time, I carry a few things I almost forgot, a paintbrush tucked between notebooks, a camera resting on my seat, and the laughter of the girl who once filled every room she walked into.

The noise is still there, it always will be. But it doesn’t feel like noise anymore. It feels like life.
And for the first time in a long time, I’m not just moving forward.
I’m traveling, through the curve, with all my versions still aboard.

Zainab

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