The Shortest Break

いまやすむ
ひかりがとまり
じかんわらう

ima yasumu / hikari ga tomari / jikan warau
now I rest / the light stands still / time smiles

–––

Lately, I keep catching myself mid-motion—
halfway through brushing my teeth, answering a message, closing the fridge door—
and realizing I’ve forgotten what day it is.

Not in a romantic, free-spirited way,
but in the quiet panic of someone watching life move past like a train whose destination he can’t read.

There’s this strange tension in me lately: the sense that time is spilling too quickly,
and I’m too polite to interrupt it.
I keep telling myself I’ll rest after—after the work, after the noise, after I’ve earned it.
But “after” never really comes.

Maybe you know the feeling.
When the rhythm of your own life grows mechanical,
and you start mistaking momentum for meaning.
You wake up, you move, you perform the small rituals of existence—
coffee, screens, polite conversations—
and in the gaps between them, a quiet ache blooms.

I’ve been putting off stopping.
Not quitting, not escaping—just stopping.
Even for a breath long enough to notice the dust in a sunbeam,
or how the kettle hums before it boils,
or how someone laughs in another room and it feels like proof that time can still be kind.

Yesterday, I walked without headphones.
It felt like meeting an old friend.
The world was painfully beautiful in its ordinariness—
a loose flyer dancing down the street,
a child counting steps on the curb,
a man smoking in the wind, eyes half-closed like he’d forgotten what came before or after.

There’s a strange mercy in pausing, even when the world doesn’t.
It’s like letting water refill the shape of your absence.

The truth is, life doesn’t rush.
We do.
Life waits patiently for us to look up,
but it won’t slow down forever.

Sometimes I think about how many small moments I’ve missed—
the quiet ones that could have anchored me if I’d only stayed still long enough.
Maybe this is what growing older really means:
not running faster,
but finally learning how to stop without guilt.

Tonight, the room smells faintly of rain.
The city is breathing in the distance, steady and soft.
I turn off my phone, sit by the window, and watch the light fade.
There’s no revelation waiting here, no grand solution.
Just stillness.
And for the first time in a long while,
that feels like enough.

–––

If this found you at the right time—
if you’ve felt the days slipping too fast,
and the silence inside you growing thin—
you might want to stay awhile.

Subscribe below to join others learning to pause before the next page turns.
Sometimes the smallest break can save a life from quietly disappearing.