damakaia

there’s a weight to grief that gratitude can’t touch. it doesn’t lift. it settles low, at the base of the spine, in places thank you’s don’t reach. maybe that’s why grief becomes ritual. not loud. not dramatic. just persistent. like the hours spent in a church long after the service ends. stillness that stretches. silence that doesn’t soften. you sit there, listening to the stories people tell. the words they choose: wonderful, quiet, selfish. none of them feel quite right. none of them add up to a person. we grasp at meaning because we think it will anchor us. it never does. no one asks what he might feel, if he’s near, if he watches. we talk about him like the last breath was the end of his feeling. as though dying meant detachment. no one imagines him grieving too. grieving for the things he never said. the connections he didn’t know how to make. the version of himself he couldn’t show. even in death, he’s at a distance. not absent, just not reached. grief is louder than gratitude. ...

sylvia was right. about the figs, about indecision, about the ache that comes from standing under a tree and waiting for something to resolve itself. sylvia understood what it means to want everything — every life, every outcome, every possible sweetness — and to realize, slowly, that the tree will not wait. the fruit will rot before you can reach for it all. it’s the kind of lesson that doesn’t feel like one until it’s too late. there’s a particular quiet that comes with knowing every choice is also a loss. it’s not just about what you take; it’s about everything you leave behind. the futures you didn’t choose grow heavier in the mind than the one you did. the fruit you reach for is never guaranteed. it can split open, hollow, full of wasps, nothing like what you imagined. sometimes it isn’t even about the fruit. sometimes it’s just about deciding at all. the fear arrives early. you’re young, but already the idea of falling behind — of making the wrong choice, of wasting what little t...

i keep circling the same thought: that life doesn’t come with a manual, not really. not one we can follow with any certainty. we want it to. we want a system, a philosophy, something we can underline and carry around like a talisman. but the truth is less accommodating. we are inconsistent people trying to make consistent choices. there is no correct way to live, no elegant solution, no singular path that delivers us safely from beginning to end. we are told to cling to the present. we are told to let go. we are told to trust, to protect ourselves, to try harder, to surrender. it depends on the day. it depends on who you ask. it depends on how much sleep you’ve had. the idea that one philosophy could hold up against the ordinary chaos of a human life — a flat tire, a breakup, a terminal diagnosis, an unanswered text — feels increasingly absurd. we want clarity. we want a framework. but mostly, we want reassurance that we’re doing okay. hope complicates that. hope, when it works, can ca...