if you've forgotten how to live, start here.

Not a guide. A hand to hold.

This isn’t just a piece of writing, it’s a lifeline.
For anyone who feels numb, hollow, or stuck in the ache of being.
If you're still breathing but no longer living—this is for you.
Please read it. Please share it.
It might save someone you love.
It might save you.

This morning, writing it, saved me.

There are mornings that do not begin.

They blur, slow and silent, into the leftover ache of yesterday. You open your eyes not out of desire, but because the night spat you out. The sun does not stream into your room, it scalds. The alarm screams like a mouthful of bees and you stare at the ceiling as if it might unmake you. The bed becomes both tomb and tether, a cradle for someone who has forgotten how to resurrect themselves.

And it is not romantic.

There is no golden light kissing your cheek, no cinematic metaphor for courage. There is only the small violence of existing—again. No one teaches you how to mourn a self that’s still breathing. And the world outside asks for things; brushed teeth, matching socks, steady voices, upright spines.

So to you, who cannot rise. You whose soul forgot to attach itself to your body, whose name feels foreign in your mouth. You, whose mind is a gallery of aborted beginnings and unopened doors. You, who holds your breath through days like it's the only power you have left. You are simply a human, sorrow—salted, soul—bruised, who has tasted too much bitterness. And it is okay to forget how to care; if the days have blurred, if the world feels beige, if even joy arrives tasting like chalk.

You have mistaken your stillness for failure. There is nothing shameful about sitting still in your sorrow. Grief has its own geography, and not all paths look like movement. And sadly the world does not applaud survival, it does not throw parades for the days you simply stayed; it wants you bright, efficient, blooming.

But I want you human.

I want your tenderness, your trembling. I want you in the silence where the world forgets to look.

My dear, let the laundry wait. Let the texts rot in their bubbles. Let the day pass judgment. There is a sensuality in slowness, something capitalism has no language for. You are not here to be useful, you are here to be alive.

And listen, there is still so much left for you.

There are oranges that burst dawn onto your tongue. There are trees that gossip in the wind and moonlight that spills like silver milk across open fields. There are songs you haven’t discovered that will feel like they’ve known you forever. There are books whose last lines will shake something loose in your ribcage. There is the warmth of a pet’s weight against your thigh. The scent of an old shirt still laced with the ghost of someone you loved. There is toast. There is honey. There is cinnamon on warm skin. There is a sky that changes outfits every evening and never asks you to clap.

And you, you miraculous mosaic of nerves and nerve endings, you are still here. Even when your mind forgets how to want, your lungs keep rehearsing hope; do you know what that means? This breath means there is still time.

It means there are conversations left to have that will alter your brain chemistry. Someone is going to love you in a way that feels like remembering. One day you will laugh so hard your stomach will fold in on itself, and you will forget, that you ever forgot what laughter felt like. There is much you haven't tasted, and much you haven’t touched. You haven’t seen Venice in the rain. You haven’t kissed someone under a waterfall. You haven’t danced in the kitchen with no pants and no reason to stop. You haven’t witnessed a newborn that blinks like the universe just whispered to it.

And no, maybe none of this will fix the hollow that you’re holding. Maybe this ache will sit beside you for a while longer; a ghost stubborn to move on.

But let the ache come, let it sit. And while it sits, pour yourself a cup. And while it sips, open the window. And while it lingers, look outside and say:

“Even now, there is a world that wants me in it.”

Let the world see you, half—dressed, half—healed, wholly miraculous. Because you are not here for convenience. You are not here to impress or outperform or outpace. You are here to experience.

Listen to the rain, eat mangos over the sink, soak popcorn in tears while you cry over movies. Marvel at the world as it continues, gloriously, indifferent, impossibly alive and still, somehow, reaching for you; begging to bathe your eyes in its beauty. One day, I hope you walk outside and realise, that the sky waited. That somewhere in the soil, a blade of grass learned your name. That time did not forget you. That light, soft and patient, still shines for you.

There are still infinite ordinary miracles left for you to notice.

You are allowed to begin again. As many times as it takes. Even if your fire has gone out—the ashes remember, they always remember—what it was to burn. Life was always about returning; to your body, to the present, to yourself.

Your breath is proof of that.

Start there.

—love, with my whole entire being, amber.

Even the moon disappears—and still, it is never questioned.
So vanish, if you must.
The sky will wait for your return.

Thank you for being here. Every single one of you beautiful humans, has been a reason for me to keep breathing, to keep sharing, to keep reading.