The walls we build to survive
Meet Humphrey. My 84-year-old friend who has recently moved to Sydney to be closer to his children.
We sat together in the fading afternoon light, and he let his heart break open in front of me.
Within just a few years, he had lost two partners to illness. The grief and heartbreak came like a tidal wave and made a home within him.
Since then, he's built walls around himself because loving again feels too dangerous. He avoids building relationships with other residents in his retirement village because of this. The fear of losing, of having something precious ripped away, now makes him keep everyone at a distance.
In between his heavy words and tears revealed all. That fragile, undeniable desire to be loved, to be held. To belong to someone, to something, once more.
All this came to the surface as he expressed how lonely his days are as his children don't visit often. I encouraged him to go on walks with my friend, Diana, his acquaintance who lives in the same retirement village. They share the same kind-hearted laughter, the same sweetness.
But even that connection felt too risky for Humphrey.
As I looked into eyes that were flooded with fear, I understood. I saw myself in him.
So many of us live like this. Maybe we haven't lost two life partners, but we've lost dreams, relationships, friendships, family. We've lost pieces of ourselves. And so we build these cold walls, slowly starving our hearts, and are replaced by egos that insist, "I'm fine. My life is better this way."
A love worth the breaking
It made me wonder, does that fear ever truly go away? Or will it stand beside us until our last breath, always forcing us to choose: to either shut down to avoid hurt, or to welcome life with open arms, knowing love will hurt, knowing nothing is permanent.
If I'm lucky enough to reach my 80s, will I have let heartbreak shrink me? Will I choose a numb kind of calmness, or terrifying aliveness of love? Will I then be like Humphrey, with an ache for connection but a fear too crimpling to reach out a hand?
Romantic love has felt especially thorny for me. It's easier to keep that door bolted for now until courage comes knocking. With my family and pets, the love is enormous, it terrifies me. The idea that someone could have this much power over me…I have yet to decide if this is a terrifying or a beautiful sentiment to have lived a worthy life.
I can hear the easy wisdom of nothing lasts and life moves in cycles. But that's my logical mind. My heart still hesitates and is yet to embody it.
Humphrey, in all his vulnerability, reminded me of my own walls. The way I've said never again to another dog after mine, as the loss will be too heavy to wear. The way I've avoided opening up to romance because another disappointment feels too big to bear.
Maybe this reveals the shaky faith I have in my own resilience. Maybe it's a universal lesson: none of us can be fully confident we'll be the same after every loss. Maybe there will always be trembling hands, no matter which path you choose.
But this is the choice, isn't it?
We can stand with trembling hands behind the thickest walls, safe but starving, or we can walk with them into sunlight, ready to lose, ready to love, ready to feel the whole breathtaking, gut-wrenching, soul-changing experience of being human.
That is where I'm left, without a neat answer. Just a question between Humphrey and I, a question only the heart can answer:
Do you have the courage to break and continue living after?
My brand new poetry book is finally OUT! If you enjoyed this reflective read, then you will enjoy my poems: A collection of poetry for the dreamers and introspective souls who are on the quest to connect to self and the cosmos :)