giving up – Hearts Still Care

I didn’t expect a video game to undo me today.

I was just drifting—scrolling through my PS5 library like I’ve been doing with everything else in my life lately. Looking without really looking. Nothing holding. Nothing landing. And then I opened Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. Not because I wanted to play it—just because it was there. Habit. Muscle memory.

The moment my character started walking through the forest, something inside me cracked.

It wasn’t the game.

It was the recognition.

That feeling of stepping into a version of my life that doesn’t exist anymore.

When I checked the save file, it said May 2025.

And I just broke down.

Because that was a time when Zack and Xena were alive. When my world, however imperfect, was still whole in ways it will never be again.

I couldn’t overwrite it.

I physically couldn’t.

It felt like killing something that was already dead. Like I would be complicit in erasing proof that that life ever happened. So I didn’t. I made a new save. Left that one untouched. Preserved. Frozen. Like grief does.

Not in a dignified, poetic way. There was nothing graceful about it. It was ugly. It was helpless. It was that kind of crying where your chest actually hurts and you don’t even know what exactly you’re crying for anymore because it’s everything.

After that I went looking for her.

Goodie Pua.

Instagram first. Then Facebook. Scrolling like if I just kept going I might find something I’d missed. Some version of her that still exists somewhere. I found a photograph I love. One I’ve seen before. It didn’t matter. I held onto it like it was new.

And then a song came into my head.

Mohammed Rafi singing “Waqt Se Din Aur Raat.”

And that was it.

Because today is the 19th.

The day she passed.

Five years.

Five years and I still can’t accept that she’s just… gone. That all of them are just… gone.

What am I supposed to do with that?

What does anyone do with that?

People talk about grief like it’s something you process, something that moves, something that softens.

It doesn’t.

It just builds.

It layers.

It waits.

And then it hits you in moments like this—when you’re doing something completely meaningless, and suddenly you’re not in your life anymore. You’re standing in all the lives you’ve lost at once.

Pua.

Zack.

Xena.

Do you know what it feels like to carry that many ghosts?

Because I do.

And I’m tired.

I’m so tired of being the one who survives everything.

There’s something deeply unfair about it. About watching everyone you love leave—whether through death or distance or whatever cruel mechanism life chooses—and you’re just… still here.

Still expected to function. To eat. To talk. To show up. To carry on like this is normal.

It’s not normal.

It’s not okay.

And I’m not okay with it.

When Christina waved at me from the car today, I waved back. And in that exact moment, something inside me just… dropped.

Because I’ve lived that wave before.

I’ve lived the kind that ends everything.

And my body remembers it, even when I don’t want to.

That’s the thing no one tells you—your body keeps score in ways your mind can’t control. A simple goodbye isn’t simple anymore. It’s loaded. It’s dangerous. It’s a reminder of how quickly everything can be taken.

And then I start thinking—

What is the point of any of this?

Where is this going?

How much more loss is waiting for me?

Because it feels endless.

And I don’t have some beautiful, hopeful answer.

If I’m being completely honest—the only reason I’m still here is Zuri.

That’s it.

Not purpose. Not passion. Not some belief in life getting better.

Just her.

Because she needs me.

Because I know how to love her in a way that feels right. In a way that feels like the only thing I haven’t completely failed at.

And even as I say that, there’s this voice in my head that says—

“Maybe even she will be fine without you.”

And that thought… that thought is brutal.

Because it makes everything feel even smaller. Even more pointless. Like I’m holding on for something that may not even need me the way I need it.

But then there’s this other truth. One I don’t even understand myself.

I always come back.

I don’t know how.

I don’t know why.

I don’t even feel like I want to sometimes.

But I do.

Every time I’ve hit this place—where everything feels meaningless, where the weight feels unbearable, where I genuinely don’t see the point—I still somehow find myself waking up the next day. Breathing. Moving. Existing.

Not healed.

Not better.

Just… still here.

And I don’t know if that’s strength or habit or just survival instinct refusing to let go.

Maybe it doesn’t matter.

Maybe this isn’t a story about healing.

Maybe it’s just the truth of what it is to live like this—

Carrying too much.

Remembering too much.

Losing too much.

And still, somehow, being forced to continue.

Today isn’t a lesson.