I’ve noticed something strange about shadows. They don’t bother us when the sun is high. At noon, they’re short, almost invisible, clinging to our feet as if they don’t want to be seen. But when the sun begins to set, suddenly our shadows grow longer, darker, almost exaggerated as if the earth wants us to notice them before the light disappears.
That’s where my Shadow Length Theory comes from: our shadows our fears, regrets, and doubts grow the longest when we are closest to an ending.
And I don’t mean this only in a poetic sense. Think about it.
When you’re about to leave a place you’ve called home, you suddenly notice every detail you once ignored. The cracks in the wall, the corner of the room, the sound of the fan everything becomes heavier. Or when someone you love is about to walk out of your life, every small memory starts to stretch and weigh on you. The fear feels larger than it actually is.
And don’t tell me the science behind it. I don’t care about the angle of the sun or the physics of light. That explanation is too easy, too shallow. I’m not talking about shadows on the ground. I’m talking about the ones inside us.
It’s almost unfair the beginning of things never scares us as much as the ending does. Death feels heavier at sixty than it does at sixteen, even though it has been with us since birth. Regret hurts most when doors are closing, not when they’re first opening.
But here’s the part that makes me question myself: are these fears real, or are they just distortions?
A shadow at sunset is not darker than a shadow at noon. It only looks longer because of the angle. So maybe our biggest fears the ones that come right before endings are not truth at all, just stretched illusions of the light we’re losing.
Or… maybe it’s the opposite. Maybe the shadow at sunset is the only time we see our true size. Maybe we need the end to stretch us, to show us what we really were all along.
I don’t know which is right and that’s why I call it a theory, not a fact.
Are shadows lies, or are they revelations? Do they magnify our weakness, or finally show us our true form?
What I do know is this: the next time I see my shadow stretching across the ground as the sun goes down, I’ll pause. I’ll remind myself fear is either the biggest illusion or the truest reflection. And maybe, just maybe, it doesn’t matter which one it is.
