For years, I carried a feeling in my belly I had no name for
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Well — I still don’t.
But now, at least, I see it.
Not pain, not hunger, not fatigue. Something else. A third thing.
It shows up in a second, out of nowhere.
Sometimes it feels alive and moving,
sometimes it’s grainy, like rice.
Sometimes like a cloud — sometimes dark,
sometimes pastel-colored.
Sometimes there’s a sound in the background.
Sometimes there’s silence.
Sometimes it takes up the whole belly.
Sometimes just half.
Sometimes it's the size of an apple, sometimes a cherry,
sometimes — almost a watermelon.
For years, I didn’t know what it was.
I only knew it was there.
Like an old man who pulls up a chair, leans on his cane, and waits.
No one knows what for, but he’s there.
Like an invisible hand that pulls me back, just when I’m about to move forward.
And I had no words for it.
I was taught to ignore the body.
To smile when I felt too tight inside.
To keep going when I just wanted to lie down.
When I was too tired to fight it, I’d get angry. Frustrated.
But that feeling… it stayed. Quiet, persistent, loyal.
Sometimes it would disappear for a month.
And then come back as if it had never left.
Like an unwanted guest.
For a long time, I thought something was wrong with me.
That I was just tired.
That life felt heavy because I was "too sensitive" — which I’ve always been.
But maybe that wasn’t the truth.
The feeling in my belly wasn’t weakness.
It was truth.
It was my body saying:
“Here’s where your truth is buried. And you can’t keep sweeping it under the rug.”
That old man was a wise one —
he came to draw my attention to something important,
whatever that may have been in that moment.
So I decided to pull up a chair too.
To challenge him to a game — who blinks first.
We stared into each other’s eyes for a long time.
Sometimes I’d retreat first.
Sometimes he would.
Sometimes we’d both burst out laughing. He and I.
These days, I no longer ignore him.
I don’t ask him to leave.
I don’t beg him to vanish.
Instead, I ask:
What are you bringing me?
What do you remember that I’ve forgotten?
What do you want to tell me?
And the strangest thing is —
sometimes, just by asking, the feeling softens.
It doesn’t leave —
but it becomes gentler.
As if it came only to be acknowledged.
I’ve come to see that this feeling has a history.
That as much as I carry it — it carries me.
It carried my silences. My endurance.
The wish for everything to be okay, even when it wasn’t.
It carried all the things I didn’t say,
so I wouldn’t disturb the peace.
And all those years…
my body remembered what my mind didn’t know how to say.
I’m not writing this because I’ve “resolved” that feeling.
I’m writing it because I no longer shut it down.
Because I give it space.
And because maybe someone reading this carries the same feeling —
without a name, without a diagnosis, without permission.
If your belly ever tightens for “no reason,”
but really for every reason — know you’re not alone.
Your body is not your enemy.
It is the archive of everything you didn’t get to say.
It is your companion — for stories and for silence.
And so today, I often say to that feeling:
“I hear you. I’m here. I see you,
in whatever color you come,
however loud you get.
It’s enough for me to just rub my hands together
and place them over you… and everything quiets down.”