Disbelief

There are days and days, some darker than others, though darkness is not always a synonym for something bad. I mean the kind of days when something simply isn’t right, or didn’t unfold the way we expected.

Those days that inevitably belong to life, and that, most of the time, we cannot avoid, because they don’t depend on us. My raw reference to the disbelief that exists within me comes from the fact that I pour a great deal of energy into the people I care about, and into what I do, from work to leisure. This involuntary reduction in belief is tied to our inability, as human beings, to embrace what we cannot control. And perhaps that is asking too much, yes. Still, the slightest shift in our plans reshapes the perspectives we had built beforehand.

When the behavior of someone who matters to us fails to match what we perceive as the minimum, or simply isn’t proportional to what we give, something inside us starts to collapse. Belief fades. Not all at once, not loudly, but quietly, almost respectfully, as if it doesn’t want to disturb what is already fragile.

It feels like a shot of tequila: the salt is disappointment, and the lemon is the inevitable overthinking that takes over when we are forced to sit down and piece everything together.

Because that is what happens, isn’t it?

In the presence of disillusion, we are forced into a kind of internal reconstruction. We revisit conversations, we replay moments, we analyze silences that once felt harmless. We begin to connect fragments that, at the time, seemed too small to matter. And suddenly, the picture becomes clearer, almost painfully so. We realize that the signs were always there, scattered in plain sight, waiting for us to either notice them or choose not to.

The truth is, the eyes never lie. Actions rarely betray their meaning. It is us who try to translate them into something softer, something that fits our desire rather than reality. We convince ourselves that inconsistency is temporary, that absence has justification, that effort will eventually become mutual. But belief, real belief, is silent. It does not beg for proof, it recognizes it. And when it starts to fade, it is because something essential has already been broken long before we allowed ourselves to admit it.

That combination, disappointment and overthinking, is explosive. And its final result is disbelief, something that can either ruin us or reshape us.

Or we can choose to embrace change.

My best friend once told me, “It’s not about being prepared, it’s about acting in the presence of something that doesn’t benefit us.”
And she is right.

The secret should never be to close ourselves off because of someone or something that does not meet our expectations, but rather to extract meaning from those defining moments that left us less certain, less believing. To learn, even when learning feels heavy.

At the end of the day, we only have ourselves. And the small, seemingly insignificant details carry immense weight. I would even say they matter more now than they ever did before.

We should not feel overly analytical or guilty for placing pressure on situations where we simply want our energy to be recognized, where we want things to work. We feel deeply because we care. Because we enjoy what we do. Because we value the people who make us smile, or the one person who makes us dream.

I write because, in the middle of so many emotions and responsibilities, the year feels long, and whenever even the smallest shadow of disbelief falls over me, I try to immediately understand what I might have done to lead to such a “tragedy” (with a touch of humor).

But mostly, I write because I am an incurable romantic, somewhat egocentric, someone who believes he is incredibly capable of managing relationships on an emotional level, even if not always on a sentimental one. Well, at the end of the day, I cannot be perfect.

I felt disbelief because, once again, surrounded by so much understanding and willingness to explore what makes us different, I realized that the small details I pay so much attention to do not exist in the same way on the other side.

And it would be unfair to blame someone or punch a wall for that. Because that has always been their normal. I was simply the one who believed in the hypothetical possibility that, over time, it could become something else. Something mutual. A shared energy.

Do not lose your belief. Understand that we are all different, and above all, even the most believing person in the world has grey days where not even the sky holds an answer.