what if i just let things be?

There’s a kind of loneliness that seeps into your bones when you stop lying to yourself. It doesn’t announce itself with a crash or scream; it just slips in quietly one day when you finally whisper, “I can’t keep pretending anymore.” And you don’t even mean it dramatically. You mean it like someone slowly pulling the curtains closed because the sunlight hurts a little too much. You mean it like making your peace with silence. With how tea goes cold. With how someone you love might never love you back, and maybe they never did.

I used to think life was meant to be coloured in, like a child with crayons and endless sheets of possibility. I thought if I could just romanticise the right moment—turn the sadness into poetry, the silence into longing, the pain into beauty—it wouldn’t hurt as much. But somewhere along the way, I forgot that sometimes a rainy day is just a rainy day. Not foreshadowing. Not a metaphor. Just grey skies and wet socks and a cab that never came.

There was this physics professor I had in high school. Stern, dry, the kind of man who wore disappointment like cologne. He once said, “Always be negative, you won’t be disappointed.” And I think I swallowed that line like gospel—not because I wanted to be cynical, but because back then, it felt like a shield. I was a soft-hearted teenager with too many expectations and too many letdowns, and something about his certainty felt safe. Like maybe the trick to surviving life wasn’t being strong, but being prepared to be let down.

So I started rehearsing pain before it arrived. I expected rejection before it happened. I stopped dreaming out loud. I called it realism. I called it maturity. But what it really was… was fear. And silence. And a slow erasure of everything that made me light up. What they don’t tell you is how empty a life without hope can become. It starts quiet, like turning the volume down on joy, until one day you wake up and you can’t remember the last time you were excited about anything.

So when my therapist told me to start romanticising things, I obeyed like a soldier with a new mission. I had nothing to lose and everything to re-feel. I started dressing like the protagonist of a French indie film—messy hair, soft sweaters, chipped nail paint. I lit candles for no reason. I walked slower. I listened to sad songs like they were prayers. I underlined words in novels like they were omens meant just for me. I smiled at the sky even on the bad days, hoping the universe would notice that I was trying to come back to life.

And for a while, it worked.

Life felt warmer, like I was building a home inside myself. Like I had invited wonder back to the dinner table. But even that began to feel like another performance after a while. I wasn’t letting myself feel things—I was staging them. Curating moments instead of living them. Turning heartbreak into poetry before I had even grieved it. Trying so hard to make pain beautiful that I forgot pain is still pain, no matter how you dress it up. And maybe not everything needs to be meaningful. Maybe some things just need to be felt.

And the thing is—people still left. Plans still collapsed. Grief still arrived, uninvited, slipping through the cracks like smoke. And slowly, all those colours I had so carefully brushed onto my days began to bleed. The fake joy, the painted sunsets, the syrupy captions—I could see them peeling at the corners. It felt like I had built a world out of sugar, and now it was raining. Everything was melting. And no one was coming to save me.

I think part of growing up is realising that not everything has to mean something. That pain doesn’t always come with a revelation. That sometimes people are cruel, and it’s not a lesson. It’s not character development. It’s just cruelty. And no amount of journaling or soft music can turn betrayal into a blessing. No amount of “I’m stronger now” makes abandonment feel holy.

There’s a strange peace in accepting that. In saying: maybe this just sucks. Maybe I’m not learning anything today. Maybe this is not the love of my life, not the friend who understands me, not the year I’ll remember fondly. Maybe it’s just a bad month. A rough patch. A bruise that doesn’t turn into a metaphor. Maybe that’s allowed.

And yet, even now, I find myself reaching for colour. Out of habit, maybe. Out of muscle memory. I still pause to watch the way sunlight lands on my wall at 4 PM. I still find comfort in the way people laugh at coffee shops. I still feel a tug in my chest when someone plays my favourite song in public, like the universe is waving back at me. Maybe I’m wired that way. Maybe we all are. Designed to keep hoping, despite ourselves.

But here’s the thing: I’m not romanticising things anymore to survive. I’m not writing poems to disguise the ache. I’ve stopped pretending that every heartbreak is poetic. Sometimes it’s just humiliating. Sometimes it’s just over. Sometimes you don’t grow from it—you just learn to carry it without flinching.

I used to think everything needed to be beautiful to be bearable. That if I couldn’t make it soft or significant, it would destroy me. But I’m learning now that strength is built in silence. In choosing to stay. In making tea even when it tastes like nothing. In showing up to days that don’t offer you anything. There’s a quiet dignity in that.

I think I’ll always be someone who feels deeply. I cry at songs that weren’t meant to be sad. I form attachments too quickly. I reread texts and build worlds out of them. But I no longer shame myself for it. I no longer confuse intensity with foolishness. There’s nothing stupid about loving honestly. Even if it ends badly. Especially if it ends badly.

Maybe that’s what my professor got wrong. Being negative didn’t stop the disappointments. It just made me expect them, which robbed me of wonder. And being too positive didn’t fix things either—it just made me ashamed when I couldn’t keep the illusion going. The truth, I think, lives somewhere in between. In the grey. The in-between. The almosts. The not-quite-but-still-hurts.

So this is me now: not forcing colour into things. Not draining them of it either. Just… letting things be. Letting moments pass without dressing them up. Letting people go without making them villains. Letting joy arrive without documenting it for proof. Letting grief stay as long as it needs to, and then watching it leave without fanfare.

Some days are honeyed and soft and glowing with meaning. Others are flat, grey, unbearable. And both are real. Both are valid. Both are life.

I don’t want to survive life by turning it into fiction. I want to live it, even when it stings. Even when it disappoints me. Even when it doesn’t make sense.

So I sit here now, writing this—not with rose-tinted glasses or charcoal lenses, but just with open eyes. Some things are black and white. Some things aren’t. And maybe I don’t need to fix any of it. Maybe all I need is to tell the truth. Without dressing it up. Without shrinking it down.

Maybe this is what healing looks like.

Not beautiful.

But real.

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It took me 18 hours and 5 cups of coffee to even begin untangling what I was trying to say. I’m not sure if any of it makes perfect sense but i’m staring to realise that maybe it’s not supposed to make sense.

But thank you for holding space for another one of my quiet, messy reflections. For sitting with this, even when it isn’t tied up in a bow.

Thank you for being here. For reading. For staying.

Lots of love,

Kriti

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