When Your Body Knows Before You Do
When your body knows, it just knows. It's rarely loud about it. It doesn't send calendar invites or text reminders. It whispers. It tightens your chest. It makes you cry in your bed for the first time in months. It tells you something is happening whether you're ready to name it or not.
I think about this night a few months back a lot. I think about the afternoon earlier this summer when it was just tolerable enough to be outside in a bikini, sprawled on the roof, listening to the new Haim album all the way through. No skipping. No shuffling. I treated every lyric like bible, carving it into my brain while rereading texts from the night before, as if the right interpretation would suddenly reveal itself if I stared long enough.
When I was younger, maybe thirteen, I remember begging the universe for heartbreak that was just potent enough to match the drama of my burned Alanis Morissette tracks on my mp3. Or The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, which my mom credits with getting her through one of the hardest seasons of her life. I wanted to feel. Deeply. Urgently. Which is hilarious coming from someone whose biggest responsibility was finishing homework and learning how to use a tampon. Now it feels like the one thing I wish my imaginary genie had exercised a little restraint on.
Getting older is both the best and worst thing that happens to a person because your body both betrays and worships you. There are moments when you feel invincible. Leaving a first date, floating, replaying the kiss in your head, already knowing there's a text waiting for you asking to do this again. You check anyway, obviously, and sure enough, there it is. Proof. Confirmation. Dopamine wrapped in shortened words: when can i c u again?
And then there are the lows. The kind that truly makes you wanna die. Walking out of an ex's apartment after deciding to end it and feeling like you're running on E. Empty, not ecstasy. Or the specific self-inflicted wound of opening specific Instagram stories when you know you shouldn't. Your thumb moves faster than your common sense, and suddenly, there they are with someone new. A new smile. A new inside joke you'll never be in on. It's almost impressive how quickly your body reacts before your brain can even form a thought.
I've been thinking a lot about the ways I've betrayed my body, specifically its intuition. When you're young, you make mistakes because you don't know. You drink more than you should. You text the person you promised yourself (and your friends) you wouldn't. You say it's okay when it isn't okay at all. There's something intoxicating about curiosity, about wanting to see what will happen if you push just a little further. But at what point does curiosity stop being brave and start being cruel to yourself? That line feels blurry until suddenly it isn't.
Earlier this week, I closed a few chapters on some things that had been nudging me for longer than I care to admit. Not because I finally felt brave, or healed, or evolved, but because I got tired of carrying them around. There's something humbling about realizing that the weight you feel all the time isn't just life. Sometimes it's unfinished business. I closed those doors with texts and blocks. The kind of goodbyes that don't leave room for follow-up questions or midnight spirals. No ambiguity. No open-ended care. Just clarity, delivered plainly. There's a part of me that hopes those messages spark something in the people on the other side. A moment of reflection. Growth. Change. Even though I know, deep down, that they probably won't. And that's okay!
What surprised me most wasn't the sadness of it all, which I braced for, but how quickly that sadness dissipated once everything was actually out in the open. It didn't vanish instantly, but it softened. Like air being let out of a room you didn't realize was pressurized. The ache I anticipated didn't linger the way I thought it would. It loosened its grip. It let me breathe again. I think we underestimate how much energy it takes to keep doors half closed. To avoid the conversation. To rehearse what we would say if we ever decided to say it. To carry around a quiet awareness that something isn't finished. When you finally close the chapter, even imperfectly, there's this strange release. Not relief exactly. More like permission.
I think I've always fallen into the trap of the linger. The soft exits. The: Let's see what happens. The version of curiosity that keeps the door cracked just enough for doubt to seep back in. Linger feels romantic until it isn't. Until it turns into self-abandonment dressed up as emotional maturity. What feels different now is where my curiosity is pointing me. It's no longer about what could happen if I stayed a little longer or explained myself a little better. It's about what happens when I don't. When I choose the side where there's no room for lingering. Where the energy doesn't leak, where my body finally gets the quiet it's been asking for. It's like a door opening. Not flung wide, but cracked just enough for you to slip through. The door might still be far away. You might not even know what's on the other side yet. But once it's open, you can feel it. A shift. A forward pull. And maybe that's the truest form of trusting yourself. Not waiting for the perfect, kind, universally palatable goodbye. But recognizing when clarity is the most respectful thing you can offer yourself, even if it costs you being liked!
Your body knows before your brain catches up. The work isn't becoming fearless or perfect or immune to doubt. It's learning that when something keeps nudging you, it's usually asking to be acknowledged, not avoided. Once the door is closed, like really closed, the sadness doesn't have much space to hang around. It passes through instead of setting up camp. And on the other side of it, there's movement. Not certainty. Not answers. Just forward motion.
