There are seasons of the soul that feel like eternal winter, where time collapses into a cold grey blur, and breathing becomes less of an instinct and more of a chore. In 2023, I found myself buried in that season. Not beneath snow, but beneath silence. Beneath pain so loud it numbed me. I was in a hole so dark, I forgot what light looked like. So dense, I questioned if it had ever existed.
It wasn't that I wanted to die. It was that living became unbearable, an uphill drag with no summit in sight. I was not tired of life. I was tired in life. And so, in a moment that felt both ridiculous and holy, I made a deal with the universe: “If I'm meant to be here, if I'm meant to have joy, love, and everything I ache for, then I'm going to survive this. If not, let me go.”
The truth is, I woke up. Not gracefully, not peacefully. I woke up heaving and shaking and vomiting, not from divine deliverance, but from a body refusing to surrender. And in that mess, in that ragged breath I didn't ask for, I found a strange kind of clarity. The universe may be broken. But so am I, and we're both still here.
This survival was not a miracle in the traditional sense. There was no beam of heavenly light, no choir of angels. Just a girl, a stomach full of regret, and a life stubborn enough not to end.
But here's the thing about being shattered: it makes you porous. And in being porous, you let the light in.
That moment of survival became a turning point. I decided that if I could wake up from that, if I could find breath after begging for silence, then I could find joy too. Not all at once. Not without clawing and scraping and crying again. But I could find it. And I did.
Now I carry a truth so heavy and so sacred, it demands to be shared: You will get everything you want from this life. But first, you have to survive it.
There is a specific kind of courage that blooms in the depths. A choice that cannot be made when everything is fine. It is the choice of someone who has seen the edge, tasted the bitterness of despair, and still says, “I will try again.”
I see this bravery not just in me, but in so many others. People I love. People I've held as they sobbed. People who have buried mothers, carried the weight of identity in an unkind world, fought addiction, held hands through heartbreak, or just quietly waged war against their own minds.
Survival is not glamorous. It's often silent. But it's holy.
To anyone reading this, to the version of me who needed to read this, I beg you: Choose life. Not just for the promise of happiness or success. Choose life because you are a soul that the universe allowed to borrow flesh, to step onto Earth and feel everything. The joy and the despair. The heartbreak and the euphoria. The hunger and the fullness.
You are not here by accident. And even if you are, even if you are an insignificant speck in an ever-expanding cosmos, then doesn't that make this even more magnificent? That from dust and stardust and mystery, you got to be here?
Your life may feel small. But it's yours. And within it, you can do anything. That's not motivational fluff. That's metaphysical fact. You are a flame wrapped in skin. You are a thunderstorm pretending to be ordinary. You are temporary, yes. But that just means the moments matter more.
So make it worth it. Make your existence a rebellion against the void. Laugh loudly. Cry openly. Make art that no one understands. Love hard, even if you get hurt. Rest. Rage. Dream. Begin again. And again.
Because if the universe is broken, then you get to be the glue.
And if you are still here, it means your story is not done. There is more. More you. More life. More love.
Choose to see the light, not just at the end of the tunnel, but within yourself.
You are not alone.
You are not done.
You are the unlikely bloom in the deep, dark soil. And you are growing.
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