What If I Unfolded?

Every descent carries, within it, the seed of an ascent. I no longer have time to live small — let alone for shallow love. That’s why, some years ago, I began making peace with every side of myself. After all, we live only in the first person, don’t we? If we can’t make sense of who we are, how could we ever understand another?I never mastered that dance of polarities — too much, then emptiness; closeness, then silence.

But yoga taught me this: balance begins with the willingness to lose it. And I lost it, many times. It leaves me, now, in a steady enough seat to say this: every descent carries, within it, the seed of an ascent.

The start of a new year can be that quiet nudge to reclaim your right to wonder. Where does real posture begin — from the outside or from within? But maybe getting used to everything is just a slow way of going blind.

If so, I choose to unlearn — and remain enchanted. I choose to keep dancing along Ariadne’s red thread — the one that weaves through time, consciousness, and love. That thread doesn’t lead me out — it leads me deeper into who I am becoming.

There was a time when I folded in completely. Curled up. I carved away everything they called excess — until almost nothing remained. Just to fold myself into a shape someone else had drawn. Until the cramp arrived. And then I asked: what if I unfolded?

What if I stretched my legs? What if I stopped contorting myself to fit spaces and people who never held me, truly? It’s easy to get lost in the noise of little things. But I no longer lose myself there.

Wonder isn’t the opposite of clarity — it’s the presence that sharpens our seeing. In Chinese tradition, 2025 is the year of the snake. Perhaps it’s time to shed another skin. I’ve lived inside shallow love. I never fit.

You didn’t either. In the shallow, there’s no place to settle — you slip, or vanish. I want what overflows. But I want it in peace. I want a place where I can spill and still remain whole. Shallow love isn’t calm. And depth isn’t about adolescent fire.

What’s truly beautiful is having space to be — and to let the other be, too. What’s beautiful is diving in. Even more beautiful is diving with steadiness — knowing that the arms that hold you don’t come with judgment.

That’s why I no longer make room for shallow love.

This is my love language.

And it has space.

—

Inspired by the poetry of Marcela Scheid

Originally published in Portuguese in Veja Rio. Translated and adapted by the author.