Chunztenz

The day before Valentine’s Day in February 2020, I was supposed to be packing for Thailand,

The tickets were booked. My bags were ready. I was excited about getting away with my friends, escaping the familiar and simply enjoying the much deserving vacation.

Instead, I found myself sitting in a hospital room with my family, listening to a doctor tell us something that would change everything.

The doctor said my grandmother had stage 4 liver cancer and at best, she has about a month.

The doctor prescribed pain medication and prepared us for the reality we didn’t want to accept…

I remember sitting there completely numb. Everything that had seemed important just hours earlier suddenly felt insignificant.

The get away to Tailand didn’t matter anymore.

I cancelled the trip without hesitation.

There was nowhere else I wanted to be except beside her,

Those final weeks were filled with a strange mixture of love, fear, denial, and hope… Somewhere inside me, I still hoped that things would somehow turn around, hoping it was just a nightmare, a bad dream.

Then, on March 25, 2020, she passed away.

At almost the same time, the world outside was beginning to shut down because of COVID-19.

The world was becoming quieter, but inside me, everything was unbearably loud.

I had lost someone who had been the biggest part of my life, my best friend, someone who will choose me over anyone else and suddenly I didn’t know what to do with all the love I still had for her.

After her passing, Home didn’t feel like home anymore.

Every familiar corner seemed to carry a memory. The places that once felt warm felt strangely empty. Her absence wasn’t something I could see, but I could feel it everywhere…

I didn’t know how to grieve, so I tried not to..

I then stayed out late with friends because I don’t want to be alone in my room, everything corner reminds me of her and her voice kept lingering through my ears.

I laughed louder than I felt,I buried myself in PUBG and played for hours into the night. I went on dates looking for a connection that can replace the empty space, I looked for new connections, I drank in grief, I talked too much intoxicated. I tried to repair relationships that were already falling apart..

I was constantly surrounded by people, yet somehow I had never felt more alone.

Looking back, I don’t think I was really searching for new people.

I was searching for a way not to feel the loss.

I wanted someone, anyone, to fill the space my grandmother had left behind. I wanted friendship, affection, attention, validation, anything that could make the emptiness feel a little smaller.

But grief doesn’t disappear because you keep yourself busy.

Eventually, I realized that I was carrying it everywhere.

India, the place I had known my entire life, began to feel heavy with memories. Too many places reminded me of what I had lost, I started longing for a distance, not because I hated where I came from, but because I desperately wanted a fresh start.

I wanted to go somewhere I could become a different version of myself.

And that became Canada.

I moved believing that distance might heal me.

But distance doesn’t automatically heal you.

Sometimes, you take yourself with you.

In Canada, I experienced another kind of loss..

People I trusted and loved undoubtedly, turned away from me. There were misunderstandings, words taken differently than I intended, things said behind my back, and relationships that slowly became filled with doubt.

I tried to hold on.

I apologized, sometimes even when I wasn’t sure I should. I tried to explain myself. I tried to fix things because losing people had become something I was terrified of.

But eventually, I became tired of fighting to belong somewhere I no longer felt welcome.

So I chose silence.

I walked away.

And that decision hurt more than I expected.

I was in a new country, far from home, trying to rebuild my life while grieving relationships that had once felt like a family.

For months, I struggled with loneliness.

I wondered why I kept losing people.

I wondered whether something was wrong with me.

I tried again to create connections. I wanted to be loved, understood, cared for, and sometimes even pampered. I tried to force relationships to work because I wanted so badly to feel that sense of belonging again.

But eventually, I understood something.

You cannot force belonging.

You cannot make a relationship work simply because you’re afraid of losing it.

And you cannot keep abandoning yourself just to make other people stay.

So, slowly, I stopped chasing.

I stopped trying to convince people of my worth.

I stopped forcing connections.

I stopped seeking validation from places where I didn’t belong.

And something unexpected happened!

I finally began to enjoy my own company.

For so long, I had treated being alone as something to fear.

Silence meant thinking.

Thinking meant remembering.

Remembering meant feeling.

But eventually, silence stopped being frightening.

It became peaceful.

I began discovering parts of myself that had been buried beneath grief, expectations, relationships, and the constant need to be understood.

I learned that not every person is meant to stay.

Some people are chapters.

Some are lessons.

Some are beautiful memories.

And some relationships simply reach their end.

That doesn’t necessarily mean anyone is the villain.

Sometimes people grow apart.

Sometimes trust changes.

Sometimes you realize that staying hurts more than leaving.

And sometimes, walking away is not an act of anger.

It’s an act of self-respect.

I also learned that there is a difference between loneliness and solitude.

Loneliness is feeling like you have no one.

Solitude is realizing that you can have yourself.

That realization changed me.

I still miss my grandparents.

I still have moments when grief catches me unexpectedly. There are memories that can still make my heart heavy, even after all these years.

But I no longer want to run from those memories.

They are part of me.

And through everything, my family has remained my anchor.

When so many things changed, they remained constant. They understood my silence. They loved me through the versions of myself I didn’t always understand. They reminded me that even when everything else falls apart, some love doesn’t.

I will always carry the love of my grandparents with me.

And I will always be grateful for the family that helped me keep going.

I am still healing.

I don’t think healing is something that happens once and then ends. Some days are easier than others. Some memories still hurt. Some lessons are still unfolding.

But I am no longer trying to become the person I was before everything happened.

I’m learning to become someone new.

Someone who doesn’t need to be accepted by everyone.

Someone who doesn’t need to chase people to feel worthy.

Someone who understands that being alone isn’t the same as being unwanted.

And then, one day, I did something that might sound incredibly ordinary.

I went to a restaurant alone.

In my entire life, I had never done that.

I sat at a table by myself.

I ordered my food.

And I realized I wasn’t uncomfortable.

I wasn’t waiting for someone to join me.

I wasn’t desperately reaching for my phone.

I was simply there, enjoying my own company.

And I loved it.

It may sound like a small moment.

For me, it wasn’t.

Because that moment represented everything I had spent years learning.

I had once been afraid of being alone.

Now, I was sitting alone and feeling completely at peace.

And perhaps that’s what this entire journey has been about.

Not learning how to live without people.

But learning how to live without losing myself in the process of loving them.

I’ve learned that I don’t have to fit into every space.

I don’t have to be understood by everyone.

I don’t have to hold on to people simply because they once meant the world to me.

And I don’t have to seek approval to know my own worth.

Sometimes growth means outgrowing certain people, certain places, and certain versions of yourself.

Sometimes losing people brings you closer to yourself.

And sometimes the quietest chapters of your life become the ones that teach you the most.

To anyone reading this who has experienced loss, loneliness, betrayal, or the feeling of not belonging, please know that your story doesn’t end there.

There may come a time when the silence that once frightened you becomes the place where you finally hear yourself.

There may come a time when you realize that being alone isn’t a punishment.

It can be a sanctuary.

And perhaps, somewhere in that solitude, you will discover a version of yourself you never knew existed.

I also want to acknowledge the people I may have hurt along the way.

To anyone I wounded, knowingly or unknowingly, especially during moments when I wasn’t myself, I am genuinely sorry.

I cannot change the past.

But I can learn from it.

And I can choose to carry those lessons forward.

Today, I don’t have all the answers.

I’m still becoming.

Still healing.

Still learning.

But for the first time in a long time, I feel at peace with the person I’m becoming.

I don’t know what the next chapter holds.

But I no longer feel the need to run from the previous ones.

I can carry my grief without letting it define me.

I can love people without losing myself.

I can walk away without hatred.

And I can sit alone at a restaurant and genuinely enjoy the company of my own

Maybe that is what healing looks like.

Not forgetting what you lost.

Not pretending it didn’t hurt.

But finally realizing that after everything you’ve survived…

you are still here.

And sometimes, that’s where the story truly begins.

With love and light.

Chunz