To Breathe the Air Around You

A love letter to the things that keep me living.

Jasmine Gutz

I used to think “reasons to live” had to be monumental. Now I think they’re the soft, passing moments that remind me I exist.

It seems cliché to say that what keeps me alive every day is my family. Coming from a small family in the countryside of a small town to a big city feels like a lifetime’s difference. Maybe that’s why I hold on to small things: they remind me of where I came from.

Back home, I’d sit in the grass and feel the blades press against my clothes. The sun beamed, and my skin basked in it. I’d close my eyes to feel the breeze, and everything became still—liminal in a way. I’d hear trees sway, birds call, and if I listened hard enough, the faint distortion of radios from cars passing along the highway. It was peaceful—present yet distant, alive yet existential.

In the city, silence feels different: rarer, heavier. But sometimes, if I pause long enough, I find that same stillness tucked into ordinary moments or even shaped by my own hands. Smiling when I wake, even at 6 a.m., doesn’t change the world, but it warms something inside me. A silent ‘thank you’ for the food I get to eat, the ice cooling my water, a whispered “yummm” in my mind with every bite. The warmth of the room, the hum of the refrigerator, the buzz of the extension cord. The race of my heart when I’m lost in a show or book I love. It’s not silent, but it feels like proof that I’m here, that I can feel, that life still hums around me, even when I am quiet.

Maybe my reasons to live are as simple as warmth, laughter, and the small moments that make me feel alive again.