Kinara,
“I am the shore and the ocean, awaiting myself on both sides.”
― Dejan Stojanovic, The Shape
Have you ever had one of those moments when things go haywire — or something hits so hard — that you suddenly vow to channel all your energy inward? To nurse your ambitions, fire up your goals, and just… begin again.
It doesn’t last though — at least in my case — but this realm of resolve brings with it a kind of spontaneous combustion. A recalibration. An internal churning. A necessary force to stir things up.
Sometimes, its an unusual event. But most times, its’s just me craving distance from my everyday that’s knit too tight, too suffocating to breathe freely. And in all the personal haggard moments, I find myself retreating — not just from the world at large, but more often from those closest to me. The ones who know me too well. I know that they hold the most power over me, over how I feel. And when that warmth starts to simmer or a deep-seated comfort that makes it hard to rise from, it stops being safe. It starts to feel like an unwanted anchor, pulling me down.
Growing up, I’ve always learned to keep myself a priority and others at a gentle distance. Not sure where it began, nonetheless, solitude came naturally, even joyfully. But life has a way of nudging you towards connection — towards progress . And when you let people in, you also let in vulnerability. You shift to accommodate others. You reshape your priorities.
Sometimes, people continue to interact with an older version of you, one you’ve quietly outgrown. Other times, they expect you to do better, that you don’t have the capacity for. Sometimes, it’s not them at all — it’s your expectations that bite you back. When any of these expectations curdle in silence, you feel like you’ve disappointed someone for simply choosing self over everything. Or as it happens, disappointing yourself for choosing others over you!
And over time, love drifts. Comfort dulls your dreams. Joy lets you sit and only inhale the present. You realize that in all the tending of today, you’ve forgotten the dreams you once had. The things you once wanted to pursue, that you used to believe in. Suddenly screaming for attention.
This is when the internal churning reminds you of the faded dreams. Dreams, that feel like old wall paper curling at the corners. You don’t have the heart to peel them off, but their presence is oddly comforting. It haunts like a ghost of a time when the walls felt newer, brighter and more alive.
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Not just dreams, its true for relationships as well. More often than not , they fade. Even when it seems like its only a pause. Some glorious ones circle back — out of history, out of habit — but they too lose their natural shine. What once fit seamlessly becomes a lost puzzle piece. Sometimes we quietly stay, tending to what’s left. Other times they slip away gently, like grains of sand through the tiny lapses of a closed fist.
There are those fierce bonds too that stay despite — the corrosion of time and leaps of individual growth — taking you for a spin. The bonds that feel like second skin — not because they demand space, but because they give it. These are the ones that ebb and flow without fear, stretch without snapping at the middle, and sit quietly beside you even in silence.
Distance and growth shape us. If one moves the body, the other transforms the mind. Both are necessary. Both you can’t avoid.
Shams Tabrizi was once Rumi’s closest. Friend, partner, soulmate, lover. I utter these words with the utmost reverence. And when Shams departs to follow his calling, Rumi was left with a grief so bottomless that he cradled his wounds with verses. And with these, he healed not just himself, but generations after him.
This story stays with me.
Because it reminds me: People come into our lives for a reason. Sometimes, we needed them for the person we were at that particular time. Some come to us as guardians. And some as masters in disguise — teaching us — reminding us of our resilience, our dreams, our purpose — through pain, through presence, and in time, through their absence...
Not every affliction is meant to last.
There is grace in the letting go.
Each of us is shaped by our own capacity to love, to grow, to change and to heal. We must learn to honor that — and also the galaxy of space that silently creeps between us, launching us into new orbits, toward our own waiting destinies.
So perhaps the lesson to learn is simply this: guard your center. Be generous, be kind — but stay anchored in your own core. Let everything you encounter enrich your path, not define it. Because one day, much may chip away — but what stays are the quiet wins, the dreams you dared and in the wild journeys that you partake to become the you, the YOU are meant to be.
Only those are yours.
Not the dreams you held close.
Not the houses(and hearts) you once lived.
Not the things(and people) you called for comfort.
And certainly, not the time that passed (without chaos)!
