Learning to Breathe in the Storm

I thought the storm had already swallowed me whole. I thought I’d become its wind, its rain, its noise. But somewhere inside the noise there’s still a heartbeat, faint but there. It’s mine.

The rain hasn’t stopped, but I’m still breathing. My hands are still here. My body is still here. For all the weight pressing down on me, some part of me keeps moving. It isn’t brave. It isn’t heroic. It’s just human — a quiet, stubborn instinct to stay alive even when everything feels pointless.

People tell me storms pass. I don’t know if that’s true. Maybe some storms never leave; maybe they become part of you. But even inside them, there are moments — a break in the clouds, a single breath that doesn’t hurt, a voice on the other end of the phone. Tiny things, but enough to prove that the storm isn’t the only thing that exists.

I don’t have a map. I don’t have a plan. But right now, in this moment, I’m still here. And that has to mean something. If the storm is part of me, then so is the heartbeat, so is the small voice saying not yet.

I’m not out of the storm. I don’t know if I ever will be. But for now I’m learning how to breathe inside it. And maybe that’s the first step toward finding a way through.