rishilagaman

Romanticizing the ache of being alive

[rishilagaman]

The Things a Room Can Teach You

For twenty years, every version of me belonged to a shared space.

My life happened in shared rooms. Every habit learned to make itself smaller. Every emotion became quieter. I got used to checking if someone was asleep before turning on a light, lowering my voice without thinking, and keeping parts of myself tucked away simply because there was never a place where they could exist uninterrupted.

Every late night thought had to stay inside my head because someone else was sleeping. Every tear had to be quiet. Every celebration had to be small. Even silence never really belonged to me. It was always borrowed.

Now I have a room of my own.

It's strange how something as ordinary as closing a door behind you can feel like being trusted with your own life for the first time.

I'm still getting used to it. I catch myself whispering even when I'm alone. I still hesitate before turning on music. I still expect someone to walk in without knocking.

But every day this room teaches me something new.

It teaches me that peace has a sound. That loneliness and solitude are not the same thing. That I can leave my diary open on the desk without worrying someone will read the pages meant only for me, keep the lights on until three in the morning, sit on the floor doing absolutely nothing, and exist without apologizing for taking up space.

The strangest thing I've discovered isn't the silence.

It's how much of myself had been living with quiet hesitation.

It's teaching me what it feels like to stop editing myself. To laugh as loudly as I want without wondering if I'm being too much. To talk to myself, sing to myself, make the silliest faces, and let my emotions exist without instinctively softening them. I didn't realize how much of my life had been spent unconsciously making myself smaller until I had a place where I no longer had to.

It also gave me something I never knew I'd love so much. A little balcony.

A place where I can curl up with a cup of chai, put on a comforting sitcom I've watched a hundred times before, and let the rain do all the talking. Sometimes I don't even watch the show. I just sit there, listening to the rhythm of water against the railing, feeling like the world has finally slowed down enough for me to catch my breath.

I've learned the joy of leaving things exactly where I left them. Of decorating a corner because it makes me happy. Of reading without interruption. Of dancing badly to music no one else has to hear. Of sitting in complete silence without feeling the need to fill it.

This room isn't luxury. It isn't about four walls or furniture.

It's about having a place where I don't have to shrink myself. A place where I can think loudly, laugh freely, cry honestly, and simply exist without feeling like I'm in someone's way.

Maybe that's why I've been smiling at the smallest things. The way the afternoon light falls through the window. The quiet after midnight.

After twenty years, I'm finally learning what it feels like to have a little corner of the world that asks nothing of me except to be myself.

And somehow, that feels bigger than I ever imagined.

[ell-hs]

[dxstroymx]

i need to kill myself, M.T.

[rishilagaman]

we survive less by grand revelations than by unfinished errands. i hope i never run out of small reasons.

[strawberrymargins]

The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

[stuckinapril]

[tordenvejr]

art will save you, being unreasonably passionate about something niche will save you, letting past sources of joy show you the way back to yourself will save you, earnestness over composure will save you, the natural world will save you, caring for something bigger than yourself will save you, daring to be seen will save you, kindness not as a whim but a principle will save you, appreciation as a practice will save you, daring to try something new will save you, grounding will save you, love will save you, one good nights sleep will save you

[sl8tersstuff]

I live my life in a constant state of grief of what I did, what I didn’t do, and what I can never do.

[resqectable]

“I used to dislike being sensitive. I thought it made me weak. But take away that single trait, and you take away the very essence of who I am. You take away my conscience, my ability to empathize, my intuition, my creativity, my deep appreciation for the little things, my vivid inner life, my deep awareness of others’ pain, and my passion for it all.”

— Unknown

[weltenwellen]

An Interview with Richard Siken

[rishilagaman]

Losing a pet is strange in a way that only people who have lived through it will understand. It does not hit like human loss. It is quieter, more private, almost like a room inside you that suddenly goes dark.

When I first found out that my dog had a chronic life threatening condition, the grief started long before he was gone. That period, the waiting, the watching, the knowing, that was its own kind of heartbreak. Every day felt heavier. Every small change in him felt like a reminder of what was coming. I was sad all the time, even when he was still right in front of me. He would look at me with the same trusting eyes, and I would already feel myself breaking.

That is the thing about anticipatory grief. You start mourning while still trying to love them fully. You cry in advance. You prepare in advance. You rehearse the goodbye a thousand times in your head even though you know the real one will still hurt.

And when the day finally came, it was painful, yes. But it was not the sudden kind of pain that throws your world upside down. It was a quieter ache. A softer acceptance. I had cried so much earlier, feared so much earlier, that when he finally let go, some part of me had already made peace with it. I had already walked through the hardest part while he was still alive.

It did not make losing him easy. It just made the grief familiar. Something I had already learned to hold. Something that did not crush me because I had carried its weight for so long.

I still miss him. I always will, I still catch myself looking at his usual spot , the corner where he’d curl up, the space near the sofa where he’d stretch and flop down after pacing around for no reason.

Even now, when I come home, a part of me waits for the sound of his slow steps, for him to wander to the door with those half-sleepy eyes and that quiet excitement he saved only for me.

But there is comfort in knowing I gave him all the love he deserved, even through the hardest days. And there is peace in knowing that when the moment came, he was not alone and I was not in denial. I had already accepted his fate, and somehow, that acceptance softened the final blow.

He was my dog. My companion. My peace. And losing him did not destroy me because loving him had already prepared me for goodbye.

[siddick]

When Sudha said

Kabhi Kabhi Udaasi bhi thak jaati hai...

I felt it in my bones..

[hiyyihrts]

oh to be a man in a romantic painting absolutely befallen at the behest of your lady, yearning for their touch and love and affection, holding them close to keep their warmth and light nearest to you, hoping a morsel of their good nature and heart can make you whole-

[rishilagaman]

It feels like I signed a quiet pact against myself. Somewhere in the long corridors of my choices, I let go of the college I wanted, the city I dreamed of, and chose instead this smaller horizon. Everyone says it’s still good enough, decent, respectable, a safe landing. But it doesn’t silence the ache inside me.

Now I sit in this tier 2 city, in classrooms that feel too small for the noise in my head, and I can’t stop replaying the moment I let myself shrink. I carry the burden of knowing I chose less, and in doing so, I chose against myself .It feels like swallowing ashes every time I think of the library I’ll never walk into, the laughter of people I’ll never know, the city lights I’ll never call mine.

It feels like betrayal because I wasn’t defeated by the world. I surrendered to it. Maybe this is what regret truly is: not the loss itself, but carrying every day the weight of who I could have been. I am the scar of my own decisions.

Because it wasn’t the world that stopped me. It was me. My fear. My hesitation. My refusal to fight for the place I knew I deserved. I traded greatness for comfort, and now I walk these halls haunted by another version of myself, the one who made it, who is still out there, in that college, in that city, living the life I was too weak to claim.

This regret isn’t quiet. It gnaws at me every day. Not because I ended up here, but because I chose to. Because in the story of my life, I am both the protagonist and the betrayal.

[rishilagaman]

[tale-of-o-deactivated20260110]

""Yes", they [the Stoics] say, "but just as in the sea the man an arm's length from the surface is drowning no less than the one who has sunk five hundred fathoms, so even those who are getting close to virtue are no less in a state of vice than those who are far from it. And just as the blind are blind even if they are going to recover their sight a little later, so those progressing remain foolish and vicious right up to their attainment of virtue." - Plutarch, On common conceptions Little perfectionists, are we.

[rishilagaman]

[rishilagaman]

Lokon sufne ch milne daa wadaa usda Saari saari raat naa ankh lagdi

-She promised to meet me in my dreams, but I couldn’t fall asleep all night