One day,  
one whispered lie
lodged like a splinter in the soul  
can twist the whole arc of a life.  

It begins in silence:  
a mother’s cold stare,  
a father’s absent hands,  
a lover’s careless word
the moment they spill their brokenness  
into the chest of someone still soft enough to believe.  

They do not heal.  
They do not even try.  
Instead, they stitch their wounds into others,  
threading needles of shame and smallness  
through skin still learning how to feel the sun.  

And so a child, a friend
hungry for love, starving for meaning
swallows the poison without knowing,  
wears it like a second skin,  
carries it like an invisible wound.  

The tragedy is not just the breaking  
it is the living with the break unseen.  
It is the way we bow to the weight,  
believing it is the shape of who we are.  

Some spend a lifetime  
beating their fists against the walls of their own mind,  
blaming themselves for a prison they did not build.  
Some drift like ghosts,  
never knowing why the light always feels too far away.  

This is the quiet evil:  
to tear into a soul,  
to leave it bleeding and silent,  
and call it weak for not healing itself.  

And yet
somewhere deep beneath the wreckage,  
a sliver of defiance stirs.  

A small, stubborn truth  
a breath against the weight of centuries
begins to whisper:  

You were never the broken thing.  
You were never the wound.  
You were only the light, buried alive
still burning, still yours to claim.

My soul is the wind  
whispering softly through lavender fields,  
in Provence,  
where my essence lingers  
in gentle waves of purple peace,  
perfuming your thoughts  
with tender quietude.

My soul is the breeze  
that skims the Seine,  
in Paris,  
brushing lightly past Notre-Dame,  
carrying dreams from cobblestones  
to café corners  
an endless waltz of hopeful whispers.

My soul dances in Brittany,  
wild and free  
across cliffs carved by tides,  
caressing ancient stones,  
holding secrets  
of salt-sprayed memories,  
bold yet beautifully delicate.

My spirit soars  
over Normandy shores,  
tracing golden sands  
and solemn echoes,  
a timeless breath  
of reverent gratitude,  
gracing fields of poppies.

My heart flows  
through Bordeaux's vineyards,  
rippling gently  
through emerald vines  
heavy with summer’s sweetness,  
a quiet joy  
aging gracefully in the sun.

You can find me,  
in the Alps,  
a swift wind gliding  
past peaks cloaked in snow,  
crisp as clarity,  
untamed, alive  
with infinite possibility.

I am everywhere at once,  
a gentle gust in the Loire,  
a playful swirl through Lyon,  
the quiet calm of Corsica’s shores
every breath  
of France  
holds me tenderly.

So when you feel the breeze  
brush softly against your skin,  
know it’s my soul  
forever moving,  
always present,  
loving and alive,  
in the wind over France.

They chase the sun with hurried hands,
trading moments for the next ascent
while I sit still, a book half-read,
beneath the hush where daylight went.

A glass of red, a bite of cheese,
the scent of oil, the stroke of brush
what joy they miss in chasing more,
while I find heaven in the hush.

By riverside, the pages turn,
each word a ripple in my mind.
They run to catch what won’t be held
I breathe, and let the world unwind.

The wind speaks softly through the reeds,
the trees bow down to let me pass.
No need for gold, or shining heights
just painted skies and fields of grass.

I do not envy all they seek,
the climb, the crowd, the constant race.
My wealth is in the quiet things
in light, in life, in open space.

So let them move, and I will stay
where stillness hums like violin,
content to live the slower way
and find my joy in everything.

I used to think greatness
was about being smart
razor-edged minds,
clever systems,
the fastest path to the top.

But I see it differently now.
The ones who rise
aren’t always the brightest
they’re the ones
who stayed
when it stopped being exciting.
Who worked when no one clapped.
Who chose belief
when progress felt invisible.

Mastery has no shortcuts.
You can’t cram depth,
or download meaning.
People waste years
searching for the fastest way in
as if greatness is a door
you can trick open.
But the truth is:
the long road is the only one that lasts.

But that’s not enough.

Because if what you’re doing
drains your spirit,
if you wake up each day
dreading the hours ahead
then that’s not life.
That’s just survival
with a timecard.

We’re told to endure,
to push through jobs we hate,
to wear misery like it’s noble.
But I don’t believe in building a life
on a foundation of quiet despair.

You don’t owe anyone
your peace.

This is your one life.
One.

Not a rehearsal.
Not a test.
Not some endless wait
for later.

You were not born
to be efficient.
You were born
to feel sunlight on your skin,
to taste things slowly,
to lose yourself in a moment
so fully
you forget to check the time.

Work hard yes.
Struggle when you must.
But only for something
that brings you closer
to who you really are.
To what matters.

Because life isn’t about
titles, deadlines, or clocks.
It’s about meaning.
It’s about experience.
It’s about the feeling of being here,
with your soul intact.

So pick wisely.
And if you’ve picked wrong,
change.
It’s not too late.

Just don’t trade your only life
for someone else’s version
of success.

As I age, the shape of meaning shifts  
no longer angles,  
no longer sharp.  
It flows now,  
like water escaping the hands  
that once tried to hold it  
too tightly.

I used to chase truth  
like a mathematician  
equations chalked across my chest,  
defenses drawn in logic lines,  
proofs stacked like walls  
between me and what I felt.

But life  
never stayed still long enough  
to be measured.

Fulfillment crept in  
through cracks I didn’t see
in the hush between thoughts,  
in the pull of a sunset  
that made no sense  
and needed none.

I searched for truth  
in clean absolutes,  
but found it instead  
in the soft murmur of uncertainty  
in the way my chest rises  
when something just feels right,  
even when I can’t explain why.

Still,  
the hardest part is knowing  
whether that voice I follow  
is really mine
or a whisper borrowed  
from someone I thought I had to be.  
Is it my soul speaking,  
or the echo of survival?  
Even feeling can wear a mask.

Yet I listen.  
More than I ever did.  
I sit with the sound,  
wait for it to settle,  
and trust that if it brings peace,  
it’s worth following.

Now I see  
truth isn’t a fixed star.  
It’s a flicker in each of us,  
a constellation drawn  
by different hands.  

I’ve stopped needing the answer  
to be universal.  
I’ve started letting the question  
be enough.

And in that surrender  
in that unspoken trust  
that meaning lives in the marrow,  
not the math  
I feel more alive  
than I ever did  
trying to be correct.

In every room you brighten,  
every idea you chase,  
every moment you feel most alive
I’m with you.

Not as an echo,  
but as presence.  
Not behind you,  
but beside  
as someone who truly sees  
the way your mind glows  
when it meets the world with wonder.

I don’t walk your path to define it.  
I walk it to admire it.  
To remind you, quietly,  
that your thoughts are safe here,  
that your voice is heard,  
that you never need to become  
anything but exactly who you are  
to be cherished.

I understand you in the way  
that doesn't ask for permission
it simply knows.  
Knows the weight you carry  
beneath your laughter.  
Knows the brilliance in you  
that even you forget sometimes.

You never have to earn this.  
This is the kind of presence  
that stays because it wants to,  
because it believes in you  
not just when it’s easy,  
but always.

And wherever we are,  
whatever we grow into,  
I’ll still be here to admire,
rare soul you are.

I'm sitting outside.  
The air smells like old dreams
like wet soil and cracked pavement after a storm,  
like rustling leaves that once sounded  
like lullabies  
before I even knew what pain was.

It smells like the quiet corners of childhood  
I used to hide in,  
where sunlight poured through tree branches  
like stained glass,  
and the world  
just for a moment
felt safe.

It smells like the day I first realized  
I didn’t need to be anything  
to be loved.  
Not smart,  
not strong,  
not impressive.  
Just… here.

Back then, I belonged to the wind,  
to the soft hum of bees in the distance,  
to the ants weaving stories through grass blades.  
I didn’t have to earn my place.  
No one was counting.  
I was alive
and that was the miracle.

Now I understand why it felt like home.  
Nature doesn’t ask for reasons.  
It doesn’t assign value.  
It just is
and in its presence,  
so was I.

I think happiness lives there,  
in the child I buried under performance.  
The one who laughed  
just because the clouds were shaped like animals,  
who believed puddles could be oceans,  
who never asked  
“Am I enough?”
because enoughness had not yet been sold.

That child still lives in me,  
beneath the weight of doing and proving,  
beneath all the names I gave myself  
just to be loved.

Maybe the secret is to find him again
to sit in stillness,  
and let the world fall away  
until all that’s left  
is the sound of leaves,  
the smell of sky,  
and the feeling  
of being alive without permission.

He’s still there,  
quiet,  
waiting,  
barefoot in the grass.

And the wind hasn’t forgotten him.