He asked me,
"How are you?"
I smiled.
"I'm fine."
He looked at me for a moment, as though my smile had betrayed my answer.
"Are you really fine?"
I laughed.
A quiet laugh.
The kind that comes from a heart too exhausted to cry.
"No."
How am I supposed to be fine...
When pride has won a game that was always meant to be about love?
How am I supposed to be fine...
When the person who promised to choose us ended up choosing himself?
How am I supposed to be fine...
If gravity suddenly decided that whatever rises no longer needs to fall?
If the very laws that held the world together simply stopped making sense?
Because that's what heartbreak feels like.
The impossible becoming reality.
The familiar becoming unfamiliar.
The person you trusted becoming someone you can no longer recognize.
How am I supposed to be fine...
When the world I thought I understood turns out to be nothing like I imagined?
When the people I believed in become strangers wearing familiar faces?
How am I supposed to be fine...
When he says "yes" while looking into my eyes...
But behind my back, every action he takes translates into every language of "no"?
How am I supposed to be fine...
When life keeps taking pieces of me, only to hand me lessons I never asked to learn?
He smiled.
Then he laughed softly.
"I only asked how you were."
And that's the strange thing about that question.
"How are you?"
Sometimes it's answered with habit.
"I'm fine."
Sometimes it's answered with courage.
"I'm getting there."
And sometimes...
When you've carried too much for too long...
A simple question becomes the key that unlocks every emotion you've been desperately trying to keep inside.
Because the heart doesn't always wait for permission to speak.
It simply breaks its silence.
He listened patiently.
Then he asked me something I wasn't expecting.
"If you're not fine... then what is stopping you from becoming fine?"
I was quiet.
He continued.
"If gravity decided not to pull things toward the earth anymore... what does that have to do with you? Why not learn how to stay afloat?"
I frowned.
"If pride won in a game that was supposed to be about love... why are you still standing in the same place waiting for the loser to realize what he lost?"
"The world is full of people."
"It is filled with good men and bad men."
"Why keep searching for goodness in someone who keeps offering you less?"
"Why wait for someone to come back to his senses simply because you've always been sensible?"
"Why not find someone who already knows what love is?"
His words settled heavily inside me.
Because they were true.
I had spent so much time wondering whether he would change...
That I forgot to ask myself whether I would still be waiting if he did.
Even if he returned...
Would my heart still love him the way it once did?
Could broken trust return to what it was before it shattered?
Could yesterday's love survive today's silence?
Or would we simply be trying to revive a version of us that no longer exists?
There are questions that don't need answers.
Only acceptance.
Then he looked at me and said something I'll probably remember for the rest of my life.
"Don't expect too much from the world."
"The world cannot give you more than you can bear."
"The One who created you knows exactly how much weight your heart can carry."
"He never places a burden on your shoulders without also giving you the strength to carry it."
And suddenly...
The weight didn't disappear.
The pain didn't vanish.
The questions remained unanswered.
But something inside me changed.
Maybe being fine...
Was never about pretending nothing hurt.
Maybe it was about trusting that every burden I carry has already been measured by the One who knows my strength better than I ever will.
So today...
If you ask me how I am...
I'll probably still pause before I answer.
But this time...
My answer won't be based on how much life has hurt me.
It will be based on how much faith I have left.
Because I finally understand this,
The world may test my heart.
People may disappoint it.
Love may leave it bruised.
But the One who created it...
Will never ask it to carry more than it was made to bear.