Blowing Bubbles, Breaking Chains

They say healing comes in waves.

For me, it came in the shape of a bubble.

I hadn’t chewed gum in over a decade. Life had simply become too serious for something so... juvenile. Between chasing deadlines, answering backlogged emails, and pretending to have it all together, I had forgotten how to pause. Forgotten what playfulness even felt like. Adulthood had become a performance—and I had been acting for so long, I no longer remembered the script I wrote as a child.

Then, one lazy Thursday afternoon, I stopped at a gas station for fuel. As I waited in line to pay, my eyes landed on a pack of classic pink bubblegum—the very same brand I used to beg my mother to buy when we went grocery shopping. It had that signature silver wrapper with the cartoon character grinning proudly. Nostalgia hit me before reason did.

Without thinking, I grabbed it.

That evening, I sat on my small apartment balcony and unwrapped a piece. As soon as I popped it into my mouth, the sugary, almost-too-sweet flavor exploded like a memory grenade. For a moment, I wasn’t a grown man in business slacks—I was an eight-year-old in mismatched sneakers, dirt on my knees, blowing bubbles under a tree in our backyard, not caring if they popped on my face.

I chewed slowly and blew my first bubble in years. It trembled, wobbled, and collapsed with a soft pop—but it made me laugh. A real, unfiltered, belly-deep laugh.

And that’s when it started.

Every evening after that, I made time for a ritual. No phone. No work. No scrolling through bad news. Just me, my balcony, and a stick of gum. Some people meditate. Others go to therapy. I started blowing bubbles.

It sounds silly, doesn’t it? But those tiny pink bubbles became a rebellion—a silent protest against the burnout, the stress, and the societal expectations I had chained myself to. They were my small act of resistance against the version of me that forgot how to feel.

As a child, I blew bubbles to feel joy.

As an adult, I blew them to remember what joy even felt like.

Slowly, this act became more than just nostalgic fun—it became reflective. In the gentle rhythm of chew and blow, I began to ask questions I had buried for years. Why was I always so tense? Why did I feel guilty resting? Why did I believe that if I wasn’t productive, I wasn’t valuable?

One evening, as the sun dipped low and painted everything gold, I remembered something. My father used to hate seeing me chew gum. “Stop wasting time,” he’d bark. “Act your age.” I was only a kid, but I took his words as law. I began believing that fun was immature. That play was a weakness. That joy had to be earned.

But as I sat watching the sunset, gum between my teeth, I felt that narrative unravel. Maybe the things that made us happy as kids weren’t distractions. Maybe they were the most honest parts of us. And maybe growing up didn’t mean letting them go—but returning to them with intention.

A week later, my niece visited. She saw me chewing and asked, “Uncle, can I try?”

We sat on the floor blowing bubbles, giggling when they popped on our faces. In that moment, I wasn’t just teaching her how to chew gum—I was giving her permission to feel joy without apology. I was undoing a message passed down to me by a man who never knew rest.

That night, I watched her run barefoot in the yard, her laughter echoing into the fading sky, a bubble in her mouth and sunshine in her hair.

And I knew then—I wasn’t just blowing bubbles.

I was breaking chains.

At the end!

Peace doesn’t always arrive with fanfare. Sometimes, it comes in a wrapper, folded in pink, waiting for you to remember what it felt like to be free. Blow that bubble. Let it pop. Laugh like you mean it. Because the child you were isn’t gone—he’s just waiting for you to chew your way back home.