Wicaksara.

I saw it when I wasn’t in the mood to notice anything.

I stopped longer than I planned to, right at the edge of the track, lungs still burning, sweat cooling too fast against my skin. My phone was still in my hand, forgotten. When I tilted my head up, I saw the branches above the track, leaves overlapping in their own careless way, and light slipping through the gaps they left behind. It didn’t fall cleanly. It broke itself apart against the branches, splitting into thin lines that scattered across the ground, catching on the track, my shoes, my shadow. None of it arrived whole. It came down fractured, reshaped, reaching the surface in pieces rather than a single sweep.

And somehow, that was what made it beautiful.

I once stumbled upon an image like that. Sunlight breaking itself into thin strikes as it passed through a canopy of leaves. It felt close to heartbreak. It resembled the damage more than I was comfortable admitting. For the way something once whole can break, and still, somehow, allow beauty to pass through.

I thought about how people talk about heartbreak as if it ruins everything. As if once something breaks, all it can do is cut you. Bleed you out. Leave you less than you were. Breaking means you miscalculated, chose wrong, loved badly. But watching those rays break themselves apart just to reach the earth, I wondered if broken things don’t always mean damage.

When my heart cracked, nothing obvious happened at first. Life went on in its usual way. Life kept moving. Coffee still went cold. Traffic lights changed on time. Orders were called out behind counters. Someone laughed at the next table. Songs still played in cafés, half-heard over clinking cups and conversations that weren’t mine. People moved through their routines without noticing anything had changed. Whatever stopped was contained to me. The pain came much later, after I stopped turning it inward. In empty seats. In messages I almost sent. In the way certain afternoons felt longer than they used to. The anger didn’t come right away. It arrived late, after I was done blaming myself. It showed up when I realized how much I had swallowed just to keep something going. How often I downplayed my own discomfort so things wouldn’t become “get complicated.” How I trained myself to read neglect as patience, and disregard as emotional restraint.

What broke wasn’t just a relationship. It was my instinct to give. My trust in my own read of things. The idea that effort mattered at all. No one prepares you for the humiliation of offering yourself and getting distance in return—evasions, excuses, and silence treated as peace.

I didn’t feel “stronger.” I felt altered.

Love didn’t disappear after that. It changed its posture. It stopped arriving all at once. Instead, It found its way to me in pieces. A stranger holding the door, a familiar song sounding different, the relief of finally sleeping through the night. None of it fixed anything. But it reminded me that I was still here, still open enough for something to reach me.

That’s what no one tells you about breaking. You don’t close.The cracks redirect what comes in. You change how the world reaches you.

I started noticing beauty differently after that. I paid attention in a different way. In light cutting through leaves. In laughter that surprised me. In mornings that didn’t hurt as much as the night before. These moments didn’t erase what happened. They lived beside it.

And maybe that’s the point.

We don’t return to who we were before the break. That person doesn’t exist in the same way anymore. What replaces it isn’t weaker—just altered by what it’s lived through. The light that reaches us now comes filtered, altered by everything we’ve survived.

So if you’re carrying broken pieces, don’t rush to seal them. There’s no deadline for becoming anything else. Don’t rush to become “whole” again just to make others comfortable. You don’t owe anyone a finished version of yours. Let the light pass through as it is. Let it fall where it may. Light finds you anyway.

I think people misunderstand why some of us romanticize things. It’s often read as naivety, or denial, or an unwillingness to face reality as it is. But for me, pain doesn’t have to be empty to be real. Sorrow isn’t abstract. It lives in the body. In how certain memories slip in and subtly shift the mood of a space. In the repetitions left behind by grief, and how, even after time has passed, we still reach for someone who isn’t there anymore.

Life continues in small, practical ways, and somehow we’re expected to follow along. That’s what makes it hard. The ache gradually starts to come, and the absence stays consistently embedded in the way rooms feel larger, conversations shorter, time oddly misaligned. Loss doesn’t end immediately when something is gone. It stretches into what follows. Into the empty spaces that still feel occupied. Into routines that hesitate, unsure how to continue. Living with it becomes a matter of adjustment. It simply becomes part of how the days are arranged.

I think that’s why I write the way I do. I don’t want pain to dominate the narrative, but I don’t want to deny it either. Letting sorrow have texture makes it possible to acknowledge it without letting it consume everything else. It becomes one part of the room, not the whole house. I try to sit with it long enough to notice what it’s made of, only to recognize its presence. The edges feel worn, uneven where they meet the day. There’s an ache that settles low and another that shifts over, leaving the body briefly stunned. Sadness has volume even when it isn’t loud. It shapes hours discreetly, altering pace and attention. Looking at it closely doesn’t make it disappear. It keeps it from dissolving into something formless and suffocating.

The texture of sorrow is bodily before it is emotional. It lingers behind the ribs, dulls appetite, turns breathing shallow. Colors lose their saturation. Light flattens. Time thickens. The body begins to move as if bruised, cautious around ordinary moments. The pain isn’t always sharp enough to name. Often it’s a constant pressure, a sensitivity that makes everything feel closer to the skin. Sorrow stays this way, threaded through the day rather than standing apart from it.

I want to stay in it without hardening, without going numb. Romanticizing is about believing that even in hurt, there’s still something human worth noticing. Now and then, existing within that balance reads as the most honest form of hope. And on the days when hope feels irresponsible, that belief is enough to get me through.

PS: This writing was inspired by a quote discovered on Pinterest and developed through my own interpretation.

So far, after so much walked, and all I see is life as one choice after another. Life is a series of making decisions. The small decisions. Most of them don’t feel important when they’re made. They happen in the spaces between days: what we choose to answer, what we walk away from, what we keep without saying much about it. Last year reminded me of that in the most exhausting way. So many choices, stacked one after another. I made them while scared. I made them while hesitating, while unsure, while second-guessing myself, while tearing my own judgment apart, with fear planted firmly in the room, pretending not to matter. Some days, surviving my thoughts felt heavier than the days themselves.

Not every choice felt right, and not all of them felt brave, but they were honest to where I was at the time. I didn’t always trust myself, and I didn’t always see the outcome. Still, I chose. And sometimes, simply choosing was the hardest part. There were moments when everything felt… off. The world was too loud, everyone had an opinion, and I didn’t even have the space to figure out what I actually felt. I told myself I was fine. That I could handle it alone. Sometimes that was true. Sometimes it was just easier than explaining the mess in my head.

Some choices come from familiar patterns, others from instinct. A few are made out of tiredness, some out of hope. It is always the big leap we notice, while the days are formed by what we choose repeatedly. The ones made when no one is watching, when there’s no pressure to explain. Some choices didn’t age well. Others surprised me by lasting longer than I expected. Either way, they taught me how to listen to myself a little better. How to know what I repeat from what I choose, between what feels easy and what feels right. I won’t pretend I’m fearless now. I still worry about losing things that matter. I still wonder if I’m enough as I am. But I know that I didn’t get here alone, and I didn’t get here by accident.

And maybe that’s the hidden miracle of it. All the tiny scenes we’ve made by choices so small we barely recognize them, yet they accumulate in ways that define us. The acts we take with no one watching, the ripples that stretch farther than we can see. They form the contours of who we are, who we love, and how we keep returning to life, again and again.

Each choice, no matter how small, holds its own defiance: against fear, against doubt, against expectation. They are proof that even when the world feels too much, even when we’re unsure or trembling, we are still capable of moving forward, of shaping our own story, one mindful step.

There's something about December that feels like the closing scene of a musical performance, where every moment seems to rush toward a climactic end. It is the last chapter of the year, a time when the days stretch both heavy and swift, like listening to the final notes of a symphony. December feels much the same— a quiet, resonant pause before ending to year's song. The song serves as a reflection of all that we've been, everything we've faced and everything we've become. In music, the final note is not always loud or grand. Sometimes, it's a slow fade, a verse of interlude that we will hear to reflect than applaud. Some others, it's a gradual decrease of passage decrescendo, a deliberate retreat that leaves space for thought.

As I stand in this year's final chord, I realized how much of myself has shifted in ways I didn't notice until now. Growth isn't always obvious, just as a melody isn't arranged on its loudest notes. There were moments this year that seemed insignificant at the time—somewhere between the resolutions I forgot and detours I never planned for, evanescent decisions and unsaid words. However, in looking back, I see how those subtle shifts have rewritten my rhythm. I'm no longer the same person who started this year's song.

Some unplanned notes leave me with surprises that strike me most. I discovered a form of strength in the most unexpected corners. Fragility I finally allowed myself to feel. Contentment arrived like a sudden, lively shift in music after a prolonged, melancholic melody. These are the notes I didn’t plan for, the harmonies I didn’t think I could create. But, just as in music, not every part of the year was in tune. There were dissonances—moments when life seemed to pull me in too many directions at once. Yet, even those moments taught me something. They showed me how to listen carefully, to distinguish between noise and melody.

And now, as December holds its final note, I’m reminded of what comes after the music fades: a reflection. This is the time to sit with all these sides of myself—the brave, the hesitant, the hopeful, the wary. It is humbling and electrifying to realize I am both the same and entirely new. I ask myself if the year’s song truly served me. Did I live in harmony with who I am, or did I let the noise of others’ expectations drown out my own voice?

Aku tidak pernah merawat rasa marah ketika secara sengaja, ataupun tidak sengaja telatah cendala ditujukan padaku. Aku sudah terbiasa dengan penghianatan. Ditikam dari sudut yang sama sekali tidak pernah aku duga hingga aku duga. Hingga acapkali di tengah kerumunan, kupendarkan pandang ke setiap deru kaki manusia-manusia yang sibuk. Di kepalaku dipenuhi pertanyaan yang sama ke setiap wajahnya "Apa yang sedang berisik di kepala mereka saat ini? apa perasaannya sudah sama matinya dengan kecewa berulang yang hadir dalam hidupnya?". Namun kali ini rasanya, lelah juga.