There are days I close my eyes and ache for a world that’s gone. A world that felt easier, simpler, softer in ways I can’t quite name—but still remember in the ache of my chest.
I think of faded couches in rooms that don’t exist anymore. Of the way the light used to pour in through windows that have long been torn down or repainted by strangers. I think of laughter that used to echo through those walls—laughter from mouths I no longer speak to or will never hear again.
There was a safety there, or at least the illusion of it. A feeling that even when things were hard, there was time. There was hope. There was something solid to rest against. But time has a way of stealing even the foundations we thought would last forever. Places change. People leave. The world becomes unfamiliar—louder, harsher, more fractured.
I used to think I could help fix it all. That if I just tried hard enough, if I stayed informed enough, empathized deeply enough, maybe the world wouldn’t feel so broken. But I’ve learned—sometimes painfully—that I have no power to fix the world outside me. Not in the ways I dreamed or many hope they could. And holding on to the past doesn’t bring it back. It only tightens the knot in my chest.
So instead, I’ve started focusing on my bubble. The space that is mine. The breath between one thought and the next. The quiet corners of my day I still have the power to tend to like a garden. I light a candle. I pause. I play music that makes me feel. I say no when I need to. I protect my peace like it’s sacred—because it is.
I’ve stopped trying to rebuild the world as it was.
I’m learning to build a smaller one.
One that is safe for me.
One where my nervous system can unclench.
One where softness still exists, even if only in a single room with closed doors and dim lights and deep breaths.
I know I can’t fix the world.
But I can shape my space.
I can choose tenderness.
I can choose boundaries.
I can choose presence.
And in doing that, I realize: maybe the world I long for isn’t a place or a time, but a feeling.
And that feeling can always exist—inside me.
