A note to self

Somewhere along the way, life stopped being about dreams and started becoming about endurance.

Not the loud, cinematic kind — but the quiet, invisible, daily kind. The kind that doesn’t look like heroism from the outside, but feels like survival from within.

I’ve stood on too many hospital floors.

Held too many reports I didn’t want to read.

Watched people I love fight battles their bodies never asked for.

I’ve seen the quiet devastation of good news that never came. And the eerie stillness that follows after hearing the words, “We need to talk.”

I never planned for any of it.

But then again — no one ever does.

Love came early in my life. So did fear.

And ever since then, it’s been a strange duet —

the love for what I’m holding on to,

and the fear of what I might lose.

Some days, the love wins. Some days, the fear.

And in between those days, I search for the courage to keep moving forward.

There’s something no one tells you about trauma —

it doesn’t arrive as a scream.

It seeps in through normal days. It rearranges your silence.

And before you know it, your laughter carries an echo you can’t quite place.

But here’s the part I didn’t expect:

the same life that took so much from me, gave me something too.

Something I didn’t know I was being shaped for.

It gave me the unshakeable clarity of what matters.

It gave me eyes that see beyond appearances.

It gave me the kind of love that doesn’t break under pressure — it crystallizes.

It gave me people who showed up — not with grand gestures, but with steady presence.

And more than anything, it gave me a reason.

A purpose I could hold even when everything else felt like it was slipping away.

I’ve watched someone I love leave the world—knowing there was nothing I could do but hold their hand as time unraveled.

I’ve run barefoot through the night, holding a fragile life in my arms, not knowing if it would last the next breath.

I’ve wept in public, not caring who saw — because there are moments that strip you of everything but love.

I’ve stood in storms with nothing to offer but presence, and still stayed.

I’ve learned that even when your faith runs dry, your feet can still move — and sometimes, that’s enough.

And after all that — I find myself here.

Still holding on to what I love.

Still tightening my grip on what once felt like it was slipping.

Because there is something in me that refuses to let go.

Something that chooses courage — not in the absence of fear, but because of it.

This isn’t about sadness.

It’s not about pain.

It’s about what comes after all that.

It’s about waking up the next day, with the same tired eyes — but still choosing to show up.

It’s about remembering that some days, surviving is the victory.

And if you’ve made it this far —

you’re already stronger than you know.

I don’t know what’s ahead.

But I do know this,

Somewhere between grief and grace, I found the courage to keep going.

If you’re out there, reading this, and there’s a part of you that wants to give up,

hold on. Hang in there.

Not because it’s easy.

Not because it’ll all be okay.

But because the fact that you’re still here means the universe hasn’t given up on you yet.

So don’t you dare give up on you either.