I always found it serene when the world offered me pity. It was the sorrowful touch of peace that allowed me to mourn what I couldn’t bring myself to. It was the permission and grace I could never give myself because why cry when it’ll only flood my chest with heavy breaths and quickened beats.

It’s what made up 2021 and 2022. 

Heavy breaths and quickened beats of the drums of life. I couldn’t keep up, but it never slowed down, and when I tried to pick up the pace, time somehow surpassed me. Every day was a race I didn’t win, a reminder that I would never make it; at least that’s what I believed.

The thing about belief is that it requires trust and faith to exist, so in summary, I had more trust and faith in my failure than I had in myself. 

I remember when I left my seat open without scratching my name out for the competition. 

I remember when death came to visit only two months apart. 

I can still feel how my self-worth turned into a ruin of the greatness it used to be. 

I can still hear the echoes of shadows that used to linger at the back of my mind.

I can still see the nights that went bleak as I closed my eyes to dreams of my trembling feet dragging the last bit of hope I had through the concrete. 

I can still taste the words of anger I spewed towards my father as the ones for my mother disappeared. 

These were all a series of events that I was afraid to give meaning to. 

A series of events that I feared had no meaning and had no end because the beginning was too blurry to remember, 

But then a sweet serenade of bliss ran into my arms and held me closer than a mother with her firstborn child.

They say that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, and it was clear that mine were held away for far too long because I couldn't see the beauty of life, but that changed.

I fell in love with her. 

I fell in love with life and all her contrasts of chaos because, in the midst of it all, there were glimpses of peace. 

The hooves of shame and isolation I had felt created clouds of dust, but they finally began to settle.

I could stop running and start walking with my head held high. 

I didn’t know what it was called—that sudden feeling of ease after so much tension—but then I remembered life and her contrasts. 

Serene and pity were two worlds apart from being the same, but they were able to become one. 

Serendipity.