“my life is full, because i know that i am loved”

We can’t hide from ourselves forever.

We need to express. We need to open up. We can’t keep running from our true desires—because they always find their way out.

They slip through the cracks.

In the voicemail you leave after too many drinks. In the way you slam the door when you say you’re “fine.” In the silence that follows an “I love you” you didn’t plan to say. In the fight that started over nothing but was never really about that at all.

We think we’re in control.

But our truth always wants to be known.
And it’ll speak, one way or another.

And we’re terrified of that.

I’m terrified of that.

To open up again, to walk into the battlefield with no armor, only to be struck down by someone fully armed, who sees our bare skin as a target instead of a peace offering.

To say,

“I’m scared. I’m lost. I yearn for you,”

It feels like surrender, like handing over “leverage”, like giving someone the “upper hand”. We talk about love and connection like they’re combat. We’re always bracing for war.

And we suffer for it.

When I’m alone in my room, drowning in my solitude, wondering if I’ll ever get the chance to truly share life with someone, that’s when I realize I’m the one who’s scared. Lost. Yearning.

That’s when I scream.

That’s when I cry.

I promise myself, “I refuse to wear a hardened heart like a badge of honor.” 

While they say, ”Love will get you killed.”

But I’d rather risk dying in love than live half-alive, numb, anxious, and disconnected.

We can’t keep hiding. And no one wins a war until someone chooses peace.

Somewhere along the way, I lost the “why” behind the wager I keep making with my well-being and sanity.

I handed it over.

To heartbreak.
To distraction.
To fast money and the comfort that dulled my flame.

I was desperate to find it again.

I called Daniela—my beloved friend. We’ve been cultivating our friendship for years now, learning each other’s spirits through shared joys and sorrows. Our relationship is rooted in trust and watered by sincerity.

She listens without trying to fix. She can read the pain behind my jokes, and at this point, I don’t ever see our bond being broken because at any moment, we are willing to show up unarmored and say:

“I’m afraid.”
“That hurt me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I love you.”
“I need you.”
“I don’t know who I am right now.”

But most people don’t do that.
We default to the easy lies:

“I’m good.”

“I’m fine.”

We ghost.
We mask.
We hold it in until it becomes grief. Or regret. Or mistrust.

And it breaks my heart to think about how many beautiful bonds are lost to silence, to pride, to the refusal to just be human in front of one another.

How many relationships have been abandoned over what could have been resolved with a single moment of softness.

Bare expression is the antidote.
The risk, the key, and the reward.

Which brings me back to our call.

While I was on the phone with her, I shared every piece of my broken heart, my confusion, and my fears.

I told her,

“I think I’m destined to be the guy who just focuses on his career. Alone.”

She didn’t rush to correct me. She didn’t speak over my sadness. She just listened.

And then, in the stillness, she offered an insight so precise, only someone who’s memorized the contours of my soul could have reached it in that moment.

“You’re not searching for a career.
You’re searching for connection.”

And she was right.

Me—the artist whose entire life is built around expression, around revealing the parts of myself that most people bury—had fallen for the trap.

I let the world convince me that being cold, numb, and detached was the way to survive. That if I wanted success, I had to silence the very thing that gives me purpose.

Yes—it’s a huge risk to present your spirit unarmored. But distrust is a slow death. It leaves you hollow. Cynical. A skeptic. A warden of your own heart.

I almost gave up.
But her words—her presence—reminded me why I’m here.

When i was a kid,

I caught the first glimpse of my “why” during my early film studies, when I watched The Elephant Man (1980) for the first time. At the time, I was full of rage. I felt invisible, misunderstood, and angry at the world for never asking who I really was beneath it all.

And then I saw him.

The “terrible” Elephant Man.

Disfigured. Masked. Silenced.
Everyone thought he was a monster.
But I saw myself in him.

There’s a moment in the film—powerful and raw—where he’s cornered by a crowd, accused, mocked, and dehumanized.

And for the first time, he yells through the torment, through the mask:

“I AM NOT A MONSTER. I AM A HUMAN BEING.”

My tears came rolling in. 

He was finally accepted. Not because he hid his pain, but because he expressed it.

Because someone chose to see him and connect with him.

By the end of the film, he becomes a cherished figure, and he turns to his friend, Mr. Treves, and says,

“Don’t worry, my friend. I am happy every hour of the day. My life is full because I know that I am loved.”

A pause.

He looks away, then adds:

“I could not say that, were it not for you.”