SYMMETRY OF FALLING

 SYMMETRY OF FALLING - a quiet pattern of breaking down

Some falls don't make noise,

They don't crash, don't echo 

They happen in silence -

In unread texts, unanswered questions, heavy eyes, incomplete conversations and smiles that take too much effort. And you know what, it is strangely symmetrical, like breaking follows a rhythm, like the unraveling knows exactly where to begin.

I used to think that falling meant failure. That if I was struggling, it meant I was weak, that I was becoming less or unworthy. So I kept trying to hold it together, to stay NORMAL, untill even the simplest things started to feel unfamiliar.

It wasn't one big collapse, no loud breakdown, no dramatic moments. It was quite, the deep silence.

A kind of slow fading.

Then came the days I couldn't pretend anymore. The mornings i couldn't get out of bed without dragging the weight of unseen things. And after endless efforts, yet I showed up, tired, lost but anyhow I showed up.

And that's where the fall really began not in a single moment, but in a hundred quiet ways.

When brushing my hair felt like too much. When even breathing took too much effort or when someone asked, "how are you?" And I had no idea what to say, because I didn't know how to explain this. This heaviness, this version of me that didn't feel like me anymore.

I wasn't sad all the time. I laughed. I worked. I showed up. But inside, i was slowly slipping. Quietly falling parts in ways no one could see and honestly, i didn't want to anyone to. Because how do you say "I'm tired" when you don't look tired? How do you say "I'm lost" when your life looks fine from the outside?

That’s the kind of fall I’m talking about.

Not the dramatic kind people notice.

But the kind that happens quietly ,

In your routines.

In your energy.

In the way you slowly stop recognising yourself.

But somewhere, between those heavy mornings and silent nights,

I started hearing myself differently.

Not clearly. Not all at once.

Just in flickers.

A thought here,

A breath there,

A tiny pull from within saying,

“Maybe you don’t have to keep running.”

“Maybe you don’t have to hold so much.”

It wasn’t hope, not yet.

But it wasn’t numbness either.

It was something in between.

Something like honesty.

And maybe that’s where the rising quietly begins.

Not in huge victories.

But in admitting the fall.

In saying, I’m not okay.

In not hiding it this time.

Raman