potential isn't a visitor.
i think i’ve always fallen in love with potential.
as a kid, i loved going to mosaic classes.
i’d take something whole, something colourful and vibrant and break it into pieces.
i’d sit there for hours, spreading glue, cutting tiles, aching from cuts in my fingertips lining the edges of them, putting pressure on the tiles until they snapped, till they were small enough to fit where i wanted it, forcing them to fit where they naturally didn’t belong.
it was a messy and painful process. fragments across the table, glue everywhere, blood staining my fingers. but it was worth.
cause i left with a beautiful pieces of art.
somewhere between the tiles and the cuts, growing up, i carried that quiet belief that i seek something beautiful in the brokenness that was never mine to repair.
that broken things just needed the right hands to make it beautiful. hands that were patient, gentle, strong — hands that were willing to get wounded.
and slowly, i brought that belief into relationships.
i stayed with people who seemed unfinished. broken parts they carry, wanting to hold it too, hoping i could turn their fragments into something beautiful.
lingering over the cracks, finding the fragile ends, shaping the shards into the person i thought they deserved to be, even though it came with the cost of losing the version of who they were.
i always waited for the “what ifs” to come as if it were an empty space i was desperately trying to fill, finding the perfect tile that fit. because that’s what i deserve right? at least that’s what they say.
you deserve the best.
and yet i mistook the waiting for devotion, care, and for love.
and as time went by, i noticed the cost.
i believed love wasn’t meant to be perfect, i knew it came with time, growth, pain. and it does — but there comes a point.
a point where you learn the difference between attachment and love.
am i waiting for potential to show up? to appear when i’m sad? to do a TADA the next day when i’ve voiced out how much they’ve hurt me the night before? for it to stay a couple of days and leave again when things are comfortable, as if potential were a visitor who never intended to stay.
slowly, i started falling in love with potential rather than presence. that just a bit more waiting, bending, and asking.
i can have something perfect.
i did the same thing to myself. always pushing, striving, waiting, and working to best version i could become. measuring myself against a standard and future i haven’t reached yet.
pushing and breaking areas that don’t need to be pressed just because i need it to become something more.
i forgot what it was like to let go and rest. to be at peace with the presence and accept the beauty of what already is. i’ve always been chasing for the better, for the best, for the perfect and finished piece i’ve been working towards.
people aren’t mosaics. they aren’t meant to break to be perfect. to be beautiful. cause truth is, they already are.
and sometimes, they’re just in the wrong hands.
their edges are theirs, their fragments belong to them, no amount of love and care can make it mine. love isn’t labour, it isn’t a test of patience. love is accepting. it’s seeing a broken tile and loving it for what it is.
people aren’t projects. they aren’t something i should work on, complete, fix and let go once i’m done.
they’re people i let stay and let go when pieces don’t fit.
and that’s okay. letting go is okay too.
it means growth. it means i’ve come into terms with not fixing everything.
where i learned to hold space and letting the space fill itself.
in our mosaic classes, if you’ve cut a piece too small, you don’t force it or else you’ll break it into tiny pieces, so instead you give it to someone who needs it.
because sometimes pieces don’t fit, and don’t have to be forced and sometimes
that’s exactly how it’s meant to be.
- p