The Breath
That Waited
for Me
Some breaths do not come easily.
Some stay away for years.
But the body never forgets the way back home.
I didn’t know how to breathe.
Anxiety lived in my chest like a stone. Not a poetic stone. Not a spiritual stone. A very ordinary, badly behaved stone that refused to move.
Every day felt like holding my breath just to get through.
I thought this was normal. I thought this was just life.
I remembered.
Not through effort.
Not through forcing.
Not through becoming a calmer, wiser, better-lit version of myself.
I remembered through something small. Something gentle. Something that felt less like discipline and more like coming home.
My breath.
You do not have to fix yourself.
You just have to come back to yourself,
one breath at a time.
I no longer wait
for the perfect moment.
I breathe.
Not beautifully every time. Not deeply every time. Some days my breath still arrives like a late guest who forgot the address.
But it arrives.
And in every breath, I choose myself again. Not loudly. Not dramatically. Just enough to stay.
This breath was always waiting for me.
