…it was supposed to be simple.
And in the beginning, it felt breathable.
Open.
Unrestricted.
Time existed without pressure.
Moments could stretch without immediately collapsing in on themselves.
I didn’t feel like I had to ration myself.
But slowly, the air thinned.
Not enough to notice at first.
Just enough to adjust.
Just enough to tell myself I was fine.
The time got shorter.
The space got smaller.
The exits appeared before I even fully arrived.
Almost a year of this.
Almost a year of tightening.
Almost a year of learning how to exist in less oxygen.
I could feel it in my chest.
The way I stopped fully exhaling.
The way I stayed alert instead of relaxed.
The way being there required a constant awareness of when it would end.
It wasn’t just that there was less time.
It was that the time itself felt constricted.
Presence became shallow.
Connection skimmed the surface.
Everything felt rushed, guarded, half held.
Like being underwater just long enough to start panicking, but not long enough to drown outright.
I started leaving those moments feeling lightheaded.
Not emotional.
Not upset.
Just depleted.
Like my body had been holding its breath the entire time.
It felt like being boxed in without walls.
Like no matter how still I stayed, the space kept shrinking anyway.
I caught myself counting
minutes, pauses, silences
bracing for the moment it would end before it ever really began.
Even my body stopped asking for more.
It learned to wait.
To quiet itself.
To survive on less air than it needed.
When I named it, when I said it wasn’t feeding me anymore, it was reduced to timing.
Schedules.
Limits….
But that missed the point.
I wasn’t asking for more minutes.
I was asking to breathe inside the ones that already existed.
Instead, everything kept looping.
Back into the same shallow space.
Back into the same tight container.
Back into something that never opened, never deepened, never released.
Round and round.
Just enough closeness to stay attached.
Just enough distance to stay untouched.
Just enough air to survive, but never enough to feel alive.
That kind of connection starts to suffocate you.
It lives in the body.
In the ache behind the ribs.
In the way your shoulders stay tense even when you’re lying down.
In the way relief doesn’t come until it’s over.
I got tired of gasping.
Tired of adjusting to less air.
Tired of something that required me to stay small just to keep breathing.
And letting it go feels like inhaling again.
Like my chest finally expanding.
Like space returning to places that had been compressed for too long.
Like standing still and realizing I don’t have to brace anymore.
I can finally breathe.