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For the past two days, I’ve been caught in a tide I didn’t expect.

Not physically — I’m far from the missiles, the air-raid sirens, the flickering TV screens.

I’m in another country. A different time zone. A different reality, at least on paper.

But war has its own way of reaching you.

I’ve been glued to the news — watching the tension grow, one headline at a time.

And somewhere between the shock and the sorrow, I realized something quietly devastating:

this war has entered my personal life.

It seeped into my conversations.

It followed me into my thoughts.

It lit fires in places I thought were safe.

I found myself worried — not just for my family in Iran, or the friends I’ve left behind.

But also for the strangers who attacked my views online.

People who insulted me for speaking out.

People who defend the very system I’ve spent my life surviving.

And somehow…

I still felt sorry for them.

I still worried for them too.

What do you do with that kind of tenderness?

What do you do when your heart aches for everyone, even those who hurt you?

You carry it.

You let the wave hit.

And you try not to shatter.

I’ve been tossed around by emotions these days — anger, guilt, grief, fatigue, and sometimes even hope.

But tonight, I feel calm. Not because the world has changed.

But because something in me has softened.

Like a small seashell, smoothed by the ocean,

I’m still here. A little weathered. A little wiser. But whole.

And in the midst of all this heaviness, there are moments that arrive like hushes in the wind —

a thread of calm woven through chaos,

a wordless warmth that finds you without asking,

the sudden lightness that enters, not because the world is lighter,

but because something inside you chooses to loosen its grip.

Life doesn’t stop being beautiful just because the world is burning.

And maybe that’s the hardest thing to accept —

that we’re allowed to feel joy, even when others can’t.

We’re allowed to rest.

We’re allowed to heal.

We’re allowed to be whole.