There are days when I feel a quiet heaviness, one I cannot explain. It doesn’t ask for anything specific. It just sits there, gently pressing at the edges of my thoughts. I carry it through my conversations, my work, my distractions. It never disrupts, but it never disappears either. It has the shape of a question I can’t quite form.
For a long time, I thought it would go away on its own. That if I worked hard enough, kept moving, kept improving, it would dissolve. But it hasn’t. It stays, even in my most peaceful moments. Especially in them. It shows up when things are still.
There comes a point where I can no longer pretend not to notice it. That’s when I feel the need to bite the bullet. Not in the way people usually mean, not as an act of toughness or sacrifice, but as a quiet turning toward something within. A moment where I stop trying to escape the discomfort and instead let it speak.
The bullet is not pain itself. It is the decision to no longer avoid what feels painful. It is a gesture of honesty. I sit down and stop chasing answers. I let the silence say what it needs to say. And it’s here, in this space, that I begin to see more clearly.
What I often find is not a solution, but a presence. A deeper part of me that is always here, underneath the searching. It doesn’t promise anything. It doesn’t explain why that faint ache follows me. But it doesn’t judge it either. It just stays. Still and simple. And in that stillness, something softens. I begin to feel that maybe I don’t need to fix anything. Maybe I just need to understand what am I, without turning away. The desire that haunts me may never have a name. It may not need one. It may be nothing more than the longing to just ride away on my bike. Maybe I may never understand it.
When I focus on that, life doesn’t become clearer. But it becomes quieter. The noise fades a little, and I can hear what usually hides beneath the surface. I still don’t understand what this feeling inside me is. It doesn’t speak in words. It isn’t loud, but it’s steady. Sometimes it feels like longing. Other times like a gap between where I am and where I can’t seem to reach. I wonder if it’s the desire to be understood by others, without needing to explain myself. Or the wish to just stop, even in my own mind. Maybe it’s the search for something constant, something untouched by all my efforts and fears. I can’t tell if I want to find something, or just want to disappear completely.
There are moments when I think I’ve touched it, like catching a glimpse of something. But when I turn to look, it’s gone. And I’m left with only the feeling that something important is just beyond me.
So, I stay here. Not with answers, but with the quiet willingness to look. The desire hasn’t revealed itself, but it shapes everything. The way I move, the way I question, the way I keep returning to myself.
And maybe that’s the beginning of understanding: not knowing what it is, but biting the bullet and no longer pretending it isn’t there.
#Unself
Last updated: 2025-05-07T22:50:40+05:30