The Day the Tent Was Too Small for My Heart

 

The Day the Tent Was Too Small for My Heart

The weather was beautiful. The kind of weekend where campgrounds fill with braais and music, barefoot children, and wine glasses clinking just after sunset.

And still—I sat in my little tent and felt like I might shatter.

Not from some big tragedy. Not from rain or wind or anything particularly dramatic.

But from everything.

From the silence that settled between my mother and me like fog.

From trying to speak and not be heard—over and over.

From feeling like I was back in a life I had left behind.

From the laughter of strangers that echoed like a reminder: you don’t belong here today.

I felt broken.

The tent, meant to be my refuge, suddenly felt too small for my heart, too small for my grief, too small for the version of me that is still becoming.

And yet—despite the ache—I stayed.

I didn’t run. I didn’t quit.

I broke, yes. But I breathed through it.

Later that day, as if the universe had overheard the storm in my chest, a stranger messaged me. A true hippy soul—one who’d lived on the road long enough to see through the noise.

And his words, simple as they were, landed like balm:

“Just breathe. Go with your heart. Don’t listen to people. You know what you need.”

He didn’t know me. But his timing was perfect.

So this is not a post about giving up.

It’s a post about breaking and staying.

About breathing through the too-muchness.

About remembering that healing isn’t always peaceful or poetic—it’s sometimes loud and lonely and shaped like a quiet tantrum in a tent.

But I’m still here.

And tomorrow, I’ll rise again.

Because this journey, even with its rough patches, is mine.