When the River Almost Took Me but I Learned How to Float.

When the River Almost Took Me but I Learned How to Float.

A Reflection on Broken Places, Loud Voices, and the Quiet Voice That Still Said Stay

Written by Kāteb Shunnar

Author’s Opening Note

Let me tell you something most people don’t sit with long enough to let it change them. In life, when everything start getting loud, and I mean that deep kind of loud, not just folks talking or cars passing, but the kind that sit in your chest and hum behind your thoughts, most of us don’t step back. Nah. We lean forward like we about to fight noise with more noise. We try to fix everything at once like we got extra strength tucked somewhere in our back pocket. And baby, that’s how you end up tired in a way sleep don’t fix.

I’m talking about that kind of tired where your body lay down but your mind still walking circles. Where you close your eyes but your thoughts say, we ain’t done yet. You ever been there? Just laying there, staring at nothing, feeling everything all at once. Yeah. That.

Now let me go on and say this before we get too comfortable. Some of y’all not going to like what you about to read. Not because it’s wrong, but because it’s going to feel too close. Like I done walked into your house, fixed me a plate without asking, and started talking about things you been trying not to name out loud.

But don’t move. Stay with me.

Because I didn’t write this sitting somewhere peaceful with soft music playing like life been kind. I wrote this in pieces. Had to stop. Breathe. Walk away. Come back. Sit with it again. There were moments I couldn’t even write because what I needed to say was sitting too heavy in my chest.

And let’s not dance around it. Pain will wear you down. It will make you question things you thought you were sure about. It will make you tired of being strong. And some folks don’t like hearing that because it don’t sound pretty. But truth don’t always come dressed up.

I know what it feels like to smile and feel disconnected from it. To laugh and feel like you watching yourself do it. To say “I’m alright” while something inside you whispering, no you not.

But here’s what I learned the hard way.

Breaking ain’t always the end.

Sometimes breaking is the first honest thing that’s happened to you in a long time.

So if you tired… stay.

 If you heavy… stay.

 If you feel like you been carrying too much… stay.

Let’s talk.

When the River Almost Took Me but I Learned How to Float

Man listen… there comes a point where life don’t even ask you if you ready. It just start piling things on top of you like it got somewhere else to be. Not one thing. Not two. Everything. Your money acting like it don’t know you no more. Your job got you feeling replaceable. Your relationships feel like they built on something shaky, like one wrong step and everything gone tilt.

And your mind… whew… your mind get louder than a second line rolling through the street, drums, horns, everything, but none of it sound like peace.

And somewhere in all that noise, something quiet slip in.

Not loud. Not dramatic.

Just real.

“How much more can I take?”

That question don’t come from weakness. Nah. That come from carrying too much for too long without nobody helping you hold it.

I know that place. I didn’t visit it. I stayed there.

There was a stretch in my life where everything started falling apart at the same time. And I ain’t talking about small inconveniences. I’m talking about the kind of loss that sit in your bones.

My son Gabriel  lived nine days.

Nine.

Not long enough for me to figure out how to hold him without fear. Not long enough to understand what it meant to lose him. That kind of pain don’t leave clean. It stay. It echo. It show up when the room get quiet and you thought you was safe.

Then life kept going like it ain’t just broke something in me.

My grandmother passed.

Then my cousin Dawn… and the way she was taken? Man… that kind of loss don’t sit right. It don’t settle. It don’t make sense no matter how long you stare at it.

Then my mother.

At some point, I wasn’t walking through grief no more.

I was living in it.

Depression didn’t come visit. It unpacked.

Anxiety wrapped itself around my thoughts like it belonged there.

Stress… stress became regular. Like something I ate every day without realizing it was shaping my body, my mind, my everything.

And let me not clean this up for nobody.

There were moments I wanted out.

Not loud moments.

Quiet ones.

The kind where you just sit there and think… maybe everything stopping wouldn’t feel so heavy.

If you ever been there, you know.

But hear me clear.

That don’t mean you weak.

That mean you overwhelmed.

And burnout? Burnout ain’t just being tired. It’s being empty. Like you been giving and giving and ain’t nothing left in you to give yourself.

And if we being honest, some of us helped build that.

Yeah, I had to say it to myself too.

We say yes when we already tired.

 We show up when we need rest.

 We carry things that ain’t ours.

And slowly… we disappear.

That ain’t strength.

That’s erosion.

I got to a point where I couldn’t hear myself no more. Too many voices. Too many expectations. Too much noise pulling me in different directions.

So I stepped away.

Seventeen days.

No food.

Just water.

And silence.

Now let me tell you something real about that. It wasn’t peaceful every day. Some days I was irritated. Some days my stomach was talking louder than my spirit. Some days my mind kept trying to negotiate like, “You sure you want to keep doing this?”

But I stayed.

And eventually…

I heard me again.

Not the broken version.

Not the one shaped by pain.

The real one.

And that version had been buried under everything I refused to let go of.

That’s when I broke.

But not in a way that destroyed me.

In a way that revealed me.

And sitting in that silence… stomach talking, mind pacing, spirit trying to catch up… something started rising in me. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just steady. Like something old finally getting its turn to speak.

I started seeing things different.

Not outside first.

Inside.

All that weight I had been carrying? It ain’t all belong to me.

Some of it was grief I never gave myself time to feel properly. Some of it was anger I swallowed because I didn’t want to become bitter. Some of it was expectations—mine and everybody else’s—stacked up so high I couldn’t even see myself under it.

And then… just like that… a memory slid back into my spirit.

Old story.

The kind that don’t leave you once it land right.

There was a father named Aziel and his son Micah. Real simple setup. Just them and a donkey. But the lesson in it? Heavy.

They started their journey early one morning. Sun barely up. Air still cool, you know that kind of morning where everything feel quiet before the world get loud again.

Aziel looked at Micah and said, “Son, you ride the donkey. I’ll walk.”

Now Micah didn’t question it. He just got on.

They walked into the first village, and you already know how people are. Folks sitting outside, leaning on fences, watching everything like it’s a show.

By the time they made it through, whispers had already started.

Aziel told his son, “Go listen.”

Micah came back a little uneasy.

“They saying it’s a shame,” he said. “They saying I’m wrong for riding while you walking.”

Aziel didn’t argue. Didn’t explain. Just nodded.

Next morning, second village.

This time Aziel climbed on the donkey.

“Your turn to walk,” he told Micah.

Same road. Same kind of people. Same watching eyes.

Later, Micah went to listen again.

Came back shaking his head.

“They saying you wrong now. Saying a grown man riding while a child walking ain’t right.”

Aziel just looked at him… calm… like he was waiting on something.

Third morning.

Last village.

This time, neither one of them got on the donkey.

They both walked.

Side by side.

Now you would think that would fix it, right?

Nah.

People still had something to say.

“They foolish,” folks said. “Got a whole donkey and neither one using it.”

Micah came back frustrated.

You could feel it in him.

He looked at his father like… what is the right way then?

And Aziel finally spoke.

“Son,” he said, “no matter what you do, people will always have something to say. You can’t build your life around their voices. You got to build your life around your peace… and your relationship with the Creator.”

Man…

That sat heavy with me.

Because I realized how much of my exhaustion wasn’t just life.

It was me trying to live in a way that made everybody else comfortable.

Trying to explain myself to people who already decided who I was.

Trying to carry opinions that didn’t belong to me in the first place.

That’ll drain you faster than anything.

That’s how burnout really sets in.

Not just from doing too much…

…but from being too many versions of yourself at once.

That’s when I knew something had to shift.

Not outside first.

Inside.

And that’s where BREATHE came from.

Not as something pretty.

Something necessary.

Be still when everything loud.

 Not just physically. Spiritually too. Sit down somewhere. Be quiet long enough to hear what’s really going on inside you.

Release what ain’t yours.

 And I’m not talking about one big dramatic release. I’m talking about small ones. Stop answering everything. Stop carrying everybody.

Embrace your limits.

 You ain’t built to be everything. And that’s okay.

Acknowledge your pain.

 Stop pretending it ain’t there. It is. Speak it. Sit with it. Name it.

Trust this moment ain’t permanent.

 It feel like it is. I know. But feelings don’t tell time right.

Heal in your own rhythm.

 Not fast. Not rushed. Not compared.

Evolve… even when it feel uncomfortable.

 Because growth don’t always feel good while it’s happening.

Now let me bring you somewhere else for a second.

Not loud.

Not crowded.

Quiet.

There’s a canal… not one of the big, pretty places folks take pictures at. Nah. This one tucked behind old houses, paint chipped, porch leaning a little, but still standing. You can smell the water before you see it. Not bad… just… real.

That’s where Sarai used to go.

Every evening.

Same time.

Same slow walk.

Carrying a bowl.

And in that bowl… stones.

Now people talked about her.

You already know that.

“She lost it,” they’d say.

 “Ain’t right in the head.”

 “Talking to water like it’s listening.”

But Sarai didn’t argue.

She just kept walking.

One evening, a man named Malachi—tired in a way you could see just by looking at him—stopped her.

“Why you keep doing that?” he asked.

She looked at him, real calm.

“Because stones don’t belong in your chest,” she said.

Now Malachi didn’t understand.

But something in him… something heavy… made him stay.

She handed him one stone.

“Hold it,” she said.

He did.

“Name it.”

He hesitated.

Then his voice got quiet.

“This… this my grief.”

“Throw it,” she said.

He did.

Water swallowed it without a sound.

She handed him another.

“This my anger.”

Another splash.

Another stone.

“This what they said about me.”

Another.

“This what I started believing about myself.”

By the time his hands were empty… his whole body was shaking.

Not from weakness.

From release.

He looked at her and asked, “So it’s gone?”

She smiled.

Not big.

Just enough.

“No,” she said. “It ain’t gone. It just ain’t yours to carry no more.”

That right there…

That broke something open in me.

Because I had been holding everything like if I let it go, it meant it didn’t matter.

But that ain’t true.

You can remember without carrying weight.

You can grieve without drowning.

You can hurt… and still choose to stay.

So after all that… after the silence, after the breaking, after the stories started making sense in a way they never did before… I had to face something I had been avoiding.

Me.

Not the version people saw.

Not the version shaped by loss.

Me.

And let me tell you something real… that ain’t always a comfortable meeting.

Because when you finally sit with yourself without distraction, without noise, without running… you start seeing things clear. Not easy. Not soft. Clear.

I saw how much I had been holding onto.

Not just grief… but old conversations.

Not just pain… but people’s voices that didn’t belong in my head no more.

Not just loss… but expectations that were crushing me quietly.

And right there… I had to make a decision.

Am I going to keep carrying all this… or am I going to start putting some of it down?

Not everything at once.

But something.

So I started letting go.

Slow.

Real slow.

I let go of trying to prove myself to people who already made up their mind about me.

I let go of answering every little thing.

Man listen… everything don’t deserve your response. Some things just deserve your silence.

I let go of that back and forth energy. That tit for tat. That “you did this so I gotta do that” mindset. That stuff will keep you tied up in places you outgrew.

I let go of trying to control how people saw me.

Because truth is… people going to see what they want to see anyway.

And that donkey story kept ringing in my head.

Ride the donkey… they talk.

 Walk beside it… they talk.

 Do nothing… they still talk.

So at some point… you got to decide who you living for.

And I chose peace.

Not perfect peace.

Real peace.

The kind you have to protect.

The kind you have to fight for sometimes… quietly.

And that’s where boundaries came in.

Now let me say this the way it need to be said.

Boundaries ain’t about pushing people away.

They about pulling yourself back.

There’s a difference.

A boundary sound like:

“I’m not available for that right now.”

“I can’t carry this for you.”

“I need space.”

And yeah… some people not going to like that.

But them same people wasn’t helping you carry the weight either.

So why you letting them decide how you heal?

And I heard my grandmother’s voice come back to me.

Clear as day.

“If you can control your belly, you can control a lot of things in your life.”

Now when she said that back then, I thought she was just talking about food.

But nah…

She was talking about discipline.

About appetite.

Not just what you eat…

…but what you feed.

Some of us feeding stress every day.

Feeding drama.

Feeding anger.

Feeding comparison.

Feeding the need to be seen.

And then we wondering why we feel heavy.

You can’t keep feeding what’s breaking you and expect to feel whole.

So I had to change what I was feeding.

Not overnight.

Slow.

Real slow.

I started valuing my energy different.

Started noticing what drained me.

What filled me.

Who I felt lighter around.

Who I felt heavy after talking to.

That matters.

I started appreciating small things again.

And I mean small.

Quiet mornings.

A real deep breath that didn’t feel rushed.

Water.

Just water.

The way it hit different when your body actually need it.

Sunlight coming through a window.

The smell of food cooking somewhere nearby… you know that kind of smell that make you feel like life still moving.

Little things.

Because when you been drowning, you learn to appreciate anything that remind you you still breathing.

And I had to forgive myself too.

That part right there… that’s hard.

Because we don’t talk about how much we blame ourselves.

For not knowing better.

For staying too long.

For giving too much.

For not speaking up sooner.

But listen…

You did the best you could with what you knew at the time.

That counts for something.

So I stopped beating myself up.

And started building myself back up.

Piece by piece.

And yeah… some days still hard.

Let’s not lie about that.

Some days depression still try to sit next to me.

Some days anxiety knock on the door.

Some days grief still call my name like it remember me well.

But now…

I don’t answer everything.

Every feeling don’t deserve control.

Every thought don’t deserve belief.

And every memory don’t deserve to be relived the same way.

That’s growth.

Not perfect.

But real.

And here’s what I want you to understand if you still reading this.

You ain’t at the end.

I don’t care how it feel.

I don’t care how heavy it is right now.

You ain’t at the end.

You overwhelmed.

And that’s different.

That means something in you been carrying too much for too long.

That means something in you needs rest, not removal.

That means something in you still fighting… even if you tired.

And if you tired right now… breathe.

Not quick.

Not shallow.

Deep.

Put your hand on your chest if you have to.

Feel that.

That ain’t nothing.

That’s life.

Still there.

Still moving.

Still choosing you even when you don’t know how to choose yourself.

And I know it get loud again.

It will.

Life don’t stop being life.

But now… you got something different.

Now you know how to step back.

Now you know how to listen.

Now you know you don’t have to carry everything.

Now you know you can let some of it go.

And that don’t mean it didn’t matter.

It just mean it ain’t yours to hold forever.

So when the noise come back…

Don’t fight it with more noise.

Step back.

Listen.

Because sometimes… the Creator ain’t shouting.

Sometimes it’s just a whisper.

Simple.

Soft.

But steady.

Stay.

I’m still with you.

And you still here.

So keep going.

Author’s Closing Words

If this touched you, if this sat with you, if this helped you breathe just a little easier… I’m asking you to share this by any positive means. Somebody out there right now sitting in silence thinking they alone. They not. And this might be the thing that reaches them.

And if you can, please support the writer and the blog. I need your support to keep this going. This ain’t just words. This is lived truth. This is healing work. This is for anybody who ever felt like giving up but didn’t.

This is bigger than me.

This is for all of us.

Written by

 Kāteb Shunnar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TozBDZGLHG8

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