There is a chunk in my chest that chooses to settle within me.
I noticed a chunk in my chest cavity that appeared after my breakup.
It started so huge that I couldn’t wear a mask outside, as it made it hard to breathe while I fought to keep myself from crumbling. Then, suddenly, that huge chunk puffed into the air, leaving a smaller piece behind. But unlike the bigger chunk, this smaller piece never planned to stay temporarily—it chose to settle. I carry that piece every day.
I may breathe easily; it is not suffocating me. But every time I breathe, it numbs my chest, as if it tries to remind me that even though I try to move on with my everyday life, the pain is still there. It resides inside me.
Every time I laugh, the air trying to fill my lungs has to get through that chunk. Sure, I laugh, but I have to get through the painful reminder that I am not totally healed.
I did many things to nurture myself, convincing myself that this might be a seed that could bloom into a beautiful flower in the future if I was gentle enough. Or perhaps it was soil, and if I sowed love in it, good things would grow.
It took me a while to realize that it was just what it was, without any romanticization. It was a chunk of pain, and it is part of me now.
Maybe it didn’t always have to be something beautiful in the first place. Maybe it was fine if something like pain settled within me. Maybe it was about how I treated that pain and how I carry it in my everyday life.
I don’t know it yet. Whether romanticizing it or seeing it for what it actually was, I feel the need to do something about it.
The chunk, no matter how much smaller it is than the previous suffocating one, stores a lot of energy. It waits for me as it settles, wanting me to use it for something.
I stared at that chunk of pain for a while, trying to understand what was in it. Though it numbs my chest every time I breathe, I noticed that it also fueled something through its energy. It made me braver than before.
It makes me braver to always show up consistently, to face the world even though I am in pain and scared—to be brave with my faith, to be brave enough to continue living a new chapter, knowing that I have let go of all the what-ifs.
It struck me like lightning when I realized that a chunk of pain had once been—love.
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage." —Lao Tzu*
That piece of chunk is a spillage of love from what I once had. And perhaps, this chunk resides in everyone—who once was loved, but still choose to love them.
— — —
*Note: The quote may or may not be from Lao Tzu, as I haven’t found solid references for it. Please let me know!
