The Quiet Art of Letting Go

I was seventeen, only a few days from turning eighteen, sitting in the corner of a twelve by twelve room on the island where I was born. It should have felt like home, but it didn’t anymore. Somewhere along the way, it had become foreign.

I remember the air being heavy, and my chest heavier. I put on Back to December and

every word felt like it had been written for me. About me. Through me.

I didn’t know what to do with the ache. So I wrote. Not poems, not stories. Just fragments. Excerpts of what I was living through.

And in the middle of it all, there was Saai, my friend who kept me in check. When I felt like I was drifting too far, he reminded me I wasn’t entirely alone. Even when the island made me feel like a stranger, he kept me tethered.

Those days were a mix of silence and survival. The words I scribbled helped me breathe. The conversations we had helped me remember I still belonged somewhere.

For a long time, I thought letting go meant forgetting. That if I stopped holding on, it meant it never mattered. But I’ve learned that letting go isn’t forgetting. It’s remembering without the sharp edges. It’s carrying the memory without letting it sink you.

It doesn’t happen all at once. It happens in quiet ways. The day you wake up and don’t check their profile. The night the perfume that used to hurt now just smells like you again. The moment the song that once broke you is just another melody. That’s the real art of letting go. Quiet and unnoticed, until one day you realise you are already doing it.

I carried that habit into the years ahead. Into other heartbreaks, other silences, other places that felt more like home than the one I left. And I kept writing.

At first, it was only for me. Survival, not art. But now, I share these fragments for anyone who might need to see themselves in them. Because maybe you’ve sat in your own twelve by twelve room, listening to a song that cut too deep. Maybe you have written in the dark just to make the ache lighter.

If so, then this is for you.