They say 32 isn’t even middle age—still so much road ahead. But I was sprinting from scratch. My reset button wasn’t some midlife revelation—it was when someone told me, “If you’re so ashamed of your life, go kill yourself. I won’t support your education anymore.” That’s the moment the bubble popped. Reality hit like a brick wall.
All the naive dreams I thought were laid out ahead of me scattered and vanished into a dark, bottomless abyss. And I was alone. But there was this tiny voice, buried deep, whispering: If you don’t pick yourself up now, you’re next to dissolve. That whisper—that was courage. I’m not much of a gambler, but like Tyler Durden said: “Losing all hope was freedom.” When there’s nothing left to lose, it’s not gambling—it’s survival. Death stops being scary. Everything becomes a bonus.
Reality, cruel and unforgiving, has a sick respect for the broken ones. The ones who lose their innocence, their morals, their beliefs—just to stay alive. That’s when the universe finally claps for you. That’s when it gives you a shot. And you survive. But not as the version of yourself you once were. That version’s just a ghost now. You’ve met the monster inside you. And somehow, you’re okay with it.
You climbed. You conquered. You went further than you ever thought you could. You started putting the pieces back together—maybe even trying to get your soul back. But something had shifted. You were more lost than ever. Caught in drama, in pleasure, in substances. The demons you’d once tamed now danced circles around you. You couldn’t control them anymore.
And so came the spiral. Self-destruction. Everything you’d built was in ruins again. Faith? Abandoned. Love? Left behind. And once again, there you were—kneeling in front of the abyss. Empty. Tired. Wondering if eternal rest was finally peace.
But then—there it was. A thread. Thin, fraying, but enough to keep you from falling completely. And you followed it. It didn’t save you. It reminded you: when you have nothing left to lose, everything becomes bonus. And in that freedom, you let go. You let yourself become what the world made of you: hard, blunt, selfish, carelessly blown by the wind.
But even that—even that—was an another chapter yet to enfold.