Moon River

A few weeks ago, I was in Macau.

It was one of those spontaneous, no-expectation kind of trips where you show up with a camera, a bit of curiosity, and a heart still trying to make peace with everything it’s been through.

I didn’t think much when I first put The Ruins of St. Paul on my list. I thought it’d be just another tourist spot to cross off. Another place to take a photo, post, move on. But I was wrong. It stayed with me, quietly, deeply.

The moment I stood before it, something stirred. This wasn’t just architecture. This was a story. Wounded, weathered, and still here.

It was once a church. Grand, sacred, full of meaning. But after a fire in the 1800s, only the façade remained. Just one wall. The rest was gone. And yet, somehow, that lone wall… stood tall. Defiant. Beautiful. A silhouette of something that once was whole.

I stood there longer than I thought I would.

Looking at the carvings, the details, the way East and West were woven into every piece of stone. It felt strangely familiar. Like looking at a part of myself.

Because in many ways, I think I’ve felt like that too.

Once whole, now… not quite.

Once loved, now left behind.

But still standing.

Still here.

There’s something hauntingly beautiful about ruins. They don’t pretend. They don’t try to hide the fact that something burned down. They carry the memory openly. And yet people still come. They come not despite the brokenness, but because of it.

Because there’s still something worth seeing. Worth feeling.

And maybe that’s the lesson I needed without realizing it.

There was a love in my life that I gave everything to. A brief yet very meaningful encounter.

The kind of love that shakes you to your core and asks for all your softness.

It didn’t last.

But even after the fire, after the silence, the heartbreak, some part of that love still remains in me.

Not in the way I hoped. Not with us hand in hand. But in the way it shaped me, stretched me, taught me how deep I could feel.

The truth is, I don’t want to erase it. I don’t want to forget.

I want to carry it like the Ruins of St. Paul carries its history, not desperately, not bitterly, but quietly. As proof that I lived through it. That I was brave enough to love like that, once.

I may not be the same girl I was before the fall, but I’m still me.

Still soft.

Still hopeful.

Still standing.

And maybe that’s enough.