The shackle is still on my wrist — it just keeps disguising itself as something else. Can you ever truly fly when you're still carrying the weight?
I walked away from a twenty-year relationship, and honestly? I had no plan for what came next. Things just happened, and I followed whatever felt right in the moment. I packed enough clothes for about a week — impulsively, without thinking it through. No strategy, no roadmap. The only anchors I had were my job, my friends, and one passion that kept me upright: dance. I had no real place to land, so I just kept moving — one task after another, one class after the next. And yes, as much as I love dancing, it was also a mask. A way to run. Just as it had been for the entire year before I finally left.
The silence that sharpens its claws
At first, I didn't feel like much had changed. Only the surroundings were different. And that, in itself, said everything. I kept examining myself, trying to locate what I was actually feeling — because I didn't feel relieved, but I didn't miss him either. What I did feel was a quiet responsibility, a low hum of worry about how he was doing — not as a partner, but simply as a human being.
I don't know what it's like to leave someone after a bitter fight or a dramatic ending. Mine was different. The emptiness that kept washing over me had the weight of lead. I went on long winter walks, wading knee-deep through snow along the riverside where I grew up, searching for some other feeling — some answer. Nothing came. Just silence, cold and clawed.
She cried with me
I was staying at a friend's place. She gave me everything she had. The level of support she showed me — and still shows me — is something I struggle to put into words. If I wasn't home, she'd text to check in. She took me to workshops. When she saw me red-eyed early in the morning, she'd drop everything immediately — to talk, or just to hold me while we both cried.
She noticed I was constantly getting sick. She'd carry me to the car and rush me to the emergency room when the pain got bad, or tuck me in and bring me medicine. She was simply, consistently, extraordinarily there.
And then there were the others — people who had held important places in my heart for years — who disappeared. I learned what it means when someone only stays as long as you behave the way they expect, as long as you say what they want to hear.
Cold steel
It's a strange thing: someone I'd known for barely a year and a half gave me everything, while people I'd trusted for decades turned away. One night after dance class, I was stumbling around near the train station — freezing rain, pitch dark, completely lost inside myself. Because no matter how many encouraging words you receive, when you're truly alone, the tearing apart begins. Your soul screams. Cries. Howls.
I wanted relief from the pain, but it only came in flashes — brief moments triggered by something outside of me.
It felt like my wrists were bound together. The shackle is still there — it just keeps changing its shape. But it's still cold steel. It still cuts. It's still uncomfortable. And some part of you never stops wanting to be free of it.
The weight that also propels you
And yet — this burden is also what keeps pushing me forward. Because life doesn't ask permission. It doesn't knock gently or ease you in. It kicks the door open and demands that you move, usually by more than a little.
Sometimes the shackle becomes an ankle weight — making every step harder, heavier. But sometimes it does the opposite. Sometimes it launches you. One moment you're standing still, and the next you find yourself somewhere completely different, somewhere you never expected to be.
Maybe that's the real question: what if it's the weights and the constraints that finally teach you how to fly?
