some days i care too much.
other days, not at all.
i swing between urgency and numbness,
between needing to be seen
and wanting to disappear.
i attach myself
to whatever moves,
a reaction, a message,
a silence that feels louder than it should.
and i call it feeling.
i call it being alive.
but the truth is,
i’m scattered.
and i know it.
i keep looking outward for proof
that i’m okay.
that i’m valid.
that i exist.
but the weather changes fast out there.
people leave,
attention fades,
even joy thins out if you chase it hard enough.
and when all of it quiets down,
i hear the same question,
barely a whisper beneath the noise,
where am i in all of this?
not who they think i am.
not who i’m trying to be.
not what i’m reacting to.
but me,
the still part.
the quiet core.
i haven’t forgotten.
just wandered too far.
and maybe
this coming back to center
isn’t a one-time revelation,
but a daily act of remembering.
to move before checking,
to write before scrolling,
to sit with silence before seeking noise,
to breathe until i’m back in my body,
to reclaim my attention like it’s sacred—
because it is.
to put a hand on my chest and ask,
what do i know without anyone else telling me?
to notice what’s real,
right here.
i don’t need to be unshakable.
just anchored.
just home.
and maybe that center
was never mine to build,
only mine to return to.
the part of me that was never lost.
the part that waits patiently
beneath all the noise
for me to look inward and say,
there you are.
Akkshaya Varkhedi 