I am shedding the need to be understood, peeling off the layers of over-explaining, and softening the urge to convince anyone that I’m worth staying for. I don’t crave being liked the way I used to. I won’t twist myself to be digestible.
There’s comfort now in the solitude. Not the aching kind, but the kind that feels like a deep exhale. Like coming home to myself.
Isn’t it funny? To create the life you once begged the universe for? If I don’t stop to remind myself, I’ll forget how far I’ve come. From questioning why I wasn’t enough, to now knowing the way someone makes me feel is far more important than whether they find me comfortable or not. From crying on bathroom floors, begging for men to love me, to feeling so sure of who and what I am, no one can take that away from me. From settling for lukewarm, could’ve-been-a-lifetime-of-fine love, to unwilling to accept anything less than the kind of love elementary school me dreamt about. From anxiety and masks to peace and solace.
Growth comes in waves, and I am still finding my way. But isn’t it beautiful to watch yourself become.

You touched me like you saw God.
Like getting close to me might save you.
And I let you.
Not because I was weak,
but because I had nothing to prove.

You read my softness like an invitation.
Treated it like a guarantee.
Took what you wanted and left
like I wouldn’t notice the silence.

I’m sorry the world hardened you
into someone more concerned
with how you’re perceived
than how you make people feel.
And I’m sorry—
that because of that,
you’ve lost me.

I made a list of things that remind me of you.
There was a knot in my throat but a grin on my face when I thought of dinosaur sheets and the beach in October.
Your mother’s back yard and the shape of your favorite sunglasses and the tea I’ve made every night since the last time I saw you.
What a delicate, terrifying thing to love and be loved back.
What a wonderful thing you are to miss.
My heart has grown softer as I’ve gotten older and I hope the world is gentle to you.
I hope you find a love as great as ours felt without all of the barriers but I hope you don’t find it too soon.

I want to see your headlights cut through my living room window, hear your knock on my front door; aggressive and hurried. I want to watch you slip off your shoes and toss your duffel bag across my 8x10 room. Kiss my neck and tell me how hard you tried not to think of me. Tell me about your new hobbies, the distractions that didn’t stick. Tell me about all the things you’ve seen without me and how none of it meant anything at all. Throw yourself onto my living room couch, settle into the indent you left behind as though time had never passed. You tell me we were crazy to ever walk away from this. That you can’t stand the idea of growing without me, that love is somehow enough to save us from ourselves.

In another life, I’m folding laundry and hear you singing to our daughter in the next room. You are steady and I don’t feel like I’m living something I need to escape from.
In another life, I cook and you clean and we laugh at the kids we used to be. You bring me coffee in bed on Sunday mornings and never get exhausted of me telling you how much I love you.
In another life, our love isn’t dependent on either of us healing and we never reach a season where we have to walk away.
In another life, you find your way to me and I to you and being with you is the easiest part of existing.

A man who loves you won’t call you a *****
or a *****, or say you’re crazy, or say you’re the worst thing that’s ever happened to him
and ******* 2 hours later like somehow that will  undo the memories inside your brain of all the ugly words he’s ever said
So why am I stuck in a limbo of knowing this isn’t what I’m supposed to be spending my life like and staying because it’s comfortable
Maybe if I loved you less you wouldn’t resent me so much
Maybe if I was a little less of this and a little more of that you’d hold my hand in the car on the way to dinner
Why does loving you feel like muscle memory to me
Why does hating you feel like breathing
Why don’t I hate you enough to walk away
Maybe I’m afraid loving someone else would feel too safe after all of the wars I’ve fought with you

Isn’t it strange? How eventually we all become a slave to our sadness? All I’ve ever known is children full of longing and adults full of cynicism. It’s a means to survival and I recognize that. But who am I if not a child full of hope believing that eventually things will be the way I imagined them to be? Who am I without the trust that good is someday rewarded? Who am I without the fairytale ending with the man that saved me from it all? I want to believe it’s him. I know that it’s him. But who am I apart from finding my identity in the trauma of it all? Who am I if I’m not in survival mode? Maybe the idea of it all scares me more than I realize. As if I have nothing to offer if it isn’t the broken parts of me. As if I’ve got nothing interesting to say if it isn’t pertaining to the things I’ve been through. As if I’m nothing except the way been burned.