Just Breathing

I want to scream. I want to run. I want to hug anyone who’ll actually hold me and not ask for my marks afterward.

I was never the quiet type. I used to laugh loud. I used to drag friends to stupid cafes and dance until we were breathless and sticky with cold coffee. Now my laughter is rationed. My world is a timetable. My rebellion is a five-minute dance choreo when nobody’s looking.

Home feels like an interrogation room disguised as a living space. Conversations are sharp—short—and mostly about what I haven’t done. “Why didn’t you get 95+?” “What were you doing?” “You’re acting weird.” They call me names like I’m a diagnosis. “Psychotic,” they say, like it’s a badge of shame. They call me disappointment like it’s a homework assignment I failed to submit.

What did I do to deserve this?
I keep asking that. Over and over. It’s meant to sound rhetorical but it’s not. I actually want an answer. Did I laugh too loud as a kid? Did I dream too big? Did I annoy them by being alive?

I’m studying for NEET, which is apparently the national sport of anxiety. I fold myself into study blocks like origami—neat, flat, efficient. I sacrifice sunsets and sleep and stupid little joys. I trade hanging out for highlighters. I trade hugging for hand cramps. For what? A future I can’t even touch yet.

And yet — and this is the cruel, beautiful part — I have people. Real people. The friends who make my life just livable by existing. The almost-boyfriend who knows the exact time my mood plummets and sends a single text that says, “You okay?” The ones who make me feel human in short, perfect bursts. They’re sunlight through the blinds. They’re the tiny rebel acts that keep me from disappearing.

But still, like times when no one texts, no one calls, no one checks in... its gets quiet again. 

Connection through a screen is a cling film hug. It keeps things together, sure, but it’s not warmth. I want someone to pull me in properly. I want an arm around my shoulders that doesn’t end when the battery dies. I want to step outside with no alibi. I want a proper breath of air that doesn’t have to be scheduled between revision slots. I want to kiss that one person like my life depends on it and mean it.

Sometimes I fantasize about packing a bag and leaving. Not forever — just for a day. To walk and not explain. To sit in a cafe and pretend I’m an adult with deadlines I chose, not deadlines that chose me. To hug someone without feeling like an espionage operation.

Other times I’m ashamed of the fantasy. Like I should be grateful. Like who am I to want more when I have a roof and food and people who say they love me (in their own, complicated way). But gratitude doesn’t cancel grief. It doesn’t cancel tiredness. It doesn’t erase the sting when someone calls you a disappointment for the thousandth time.

This is the worst kind of loneliness: surrounded by people who think they know you and people (online) who actually do. 

I’ve become a specialist at small rebellions. Little habits that are mine and mine alone.

I don’t want pity. I don’t want “it’ll pass” platitudes. I want to be seen. I want someone — anyone — to say, “I hear you. You’re allowed to want hugs. You’re allowed to be tired.” I want someone to offer space without conditions. Is that too much?

Sometimes I get angry. I imagine telling them exactly how it feels, word for word. I imagine saying, “You call me ‘disappointment’ and then expect miracles. You treat me like a result, not a person.” I imagine slamming the door and not apologizing. Then reality sets in and I swallow my rage because consequences exist, and I have exams and I’m not ready to burn bridges.

So I hide. I hide in the small things that feel like defiance. I call my friends with my voice trembling and then laugh because I don’t want them to worry. I let my almost-boyfriend steal a laugh out of me on bad days. I build my future with trembling hands and stubborn heartbeats.

If you’re reading this and you’re in the same box: know that it’s okay to be furious and sad and desperate and hopeful all at once. You’re allowed to want more than what they give you. You’re allowed to want hugs. You’re allowed to want a life that doesn’t feel like you’re always on trial.

One day this will be a story I tell without the tremor. One day I’ll be walking out of a house that tried to shrink me and into a life I built. I’ll get on a train with my bag and I won’t look back to ask permission. I’ll call my own shots. I’ll hug people freely. I’ll sleep without checking if the anger in the living room has changed into silence.

Until then, I breathe. Because breathing is an act of rebellion when everything else is controlled. I write. I dance. I sing. I photograph. I learn new things. I love the people who love me back the way they can. I survive.

And that—right there—is not small. It’s everything