You look at me as if you do not know 

How many times in your eyes I longed to trace

To see a drop of light, 

To continue our dream across this space.


Like a small child, I run through the fields 

With a drop of dew in the grass; 

I want to find this dream amongst those longing yields

That will help my solitude pass.


My lips tremble, but do not speak, 

My hands are sweaty, 

My legs so weak, 

My heart fades before the sight occured... 


As if emerged from a graveyard, 

The body cannot endure. 

I walk and I live, yet i feel my shadow crave

But as though bugs are creeping out of my heart 

To bite off the flesh of a child who will never depart. 


Trees, once so green and serene, 

Now dead and torrential, 

Hanging their branches over the black earth and above the scene,

Which with all its soddeth mirrors all my pain.


Countless dreams in which I held your hand 

Now wake me like nightmares in the night. 

Your gaze, once so wonderful and dear across the land.

Is now completely decayed, with no trace of light.


My soul, like my mind, is furious, 

Angry, yet so bleeding, 

Desiring salvation oh so clear,

Through your consolation near.


I wait, I wait everywhere, 

For when, at the last moment, 

I will hear a bell echoing from the mountain 

That will tame my soul with pace,

And turn this dark and insulting moment 

Into a beautiful, bright day and i will feel at peace.

But when I sit on the bench in front of the door with a cigarette in hand, the memories I grew up with start floating to the surface, and saying goodbye feels harder and harder.

Many people — maybe even you reading this — have had moments where they thought, “Once I leave this place, my life will be so much easier.” But is that really true, or is the illusion that the place where it all started is to blame for everything just a lie?

Yes, I won’t lie — over all these years spent here, there were days when I wanted to burn it all down. Days when I wanted to pack my backpack and run away; days when I cursed and lamented how much I hated everything connected to this house.

But the truth is, maybe I got used to it. To being woken up early. To my personal space not being so personal. To the fights between my parents that look more and more comical by the day. To the kids learning something new every day, with their endless questions and the joy in their eyes every time I want to play with them.

Change is hard — it takes time, effort, courage. It’s scary. Maybe I’m scared, maybe I’m not as strong as I think I am.

Sitting on the bench by the front door and watching my family, I remember all the moments we spent together — the petty arguments, the endless laughter, the parts I don’t really like to talk about. The times when I preferred running far away over listening to the little kids screaming, when everything and everyone filled me with resentment. Resentment? Maybe a little. Maybe I just longed for a bit of freedom, something different.

And now, as change looms on the horizon, everything shifts. My life is about to turn 180 degrees, and I’m not sure if I’m ready for it. Am I ready to step into the adult life I dreamed of as a child sitting on this exact bench? Or maybe I’m not, but I have to, because the choice to change isn’t mine to make here.

When I get up from this bench, leave the house and the yard, and walk down the streets I’ve walked my whole life, I look at everything differently now: the bridge connecting both sides of the river flowing beneath it — the river I dreamed of jumping into as a little girl because I thought I’d swim with the fish for a bit. The little shop where I always buy bread, run by a family who has seen me in every state possible.

The dogs in every yard that know me well and never bark, even when I come home in the dark. Will they forget me now? The new kids whose names I never learned, who greet me with a smile every time, as if they know me. The people I don’t know, but who know me. Every time they see me, they ask about my parents and how they’re doing. Since I don’t know them but don’t want to blush, I reply with a smile as if I’ve known them my whole life (and sometimes, a few of them realize it and introduce themselves).

When I walk back down this road and re-enter the house, I’m glad to step into my room, which has seen every version of me. It has heard my crying, my laughter, my anger. It served as my refuge from the fast-paced daily life. This room with gray walls and a purple curtain I refuse to change, so it remains a reminder of the child in me — the one who might be long gone, but pieces of her always resurface: maybe when I laugh a little too loudly, or play with the kids outside in the wide field, or when I hold a pen and decide to draw something ugly.

I don’t know exactly where I’ll end up, and I’m not sure if I’ll like this new version of myself I’m about to meet. Change is a scary thing, but it’s also a mark of the road you’ve traveled — it’s not the end of it, but the beginning of something new. The new shouldn’t be scary just because you walked a dark road; it should be a symbol of your effort and hard work to reach this stage.

I don’t know where this path will take me, and I don’t even want to think about it right now. Because right now, I’m sitting on the bench, enjoying the gentle breeze. And I don’t want this to be the end of the fairytale with my house because, as peculiar as it is, it remains my home — the place where I will always have shelter.

i will miss you but it is time to let go

Enclosed between four walls, 

still I cannot sleep, 

still I cannot sleep. 

My eyes look on uninvited, 

my hair sways without a wind. 

Still I cannot sleep, 

still I cannot sleep. 



In my dreams, vast open expanses unfold 

of endless skies. 

Still I cannot sleep, 

still I cannot sleep. 

I want to take a bite of the day's freedom, 

which is brighter than the white wall. 



Still I cannot sleep, 

still I cannot sleep. 

Hair blowing over a small shore, 

feet sunken into the sand, 

above, the sun is shining, 

the smell of the sea. 

Surrounded by nothing but the sound of countless waves. 

Still I cannot sleep, 

still I cannot sleep. 



A tree unfolds its shadow 

to hide my weak frame. 

Still I cannot sleep, 

still I cannot sleep. 

The sun shines gently in the sky; 

a cloud comes to hide it for a child. 

Countless leaves rustle, 

resembling unfamiliar faces. 

To bare my feet 

and sweep my soles across the grass, 

until the thought of darkness comes 

and the black cloud drives the sun away. 



Still I cannot sleep, 

still I cannot sleep. 

To feel the beauty of the heavens, 

hands touching the people, 

of countless restless hands 

that did not want to surrender their children. 

To taste the forbidden fruit of the forest, 

to become one with the grass. 

Still I cannot sleep, 

still I cannot sleep.



My heart beats faster, awaiting this change; 

my soul has turned so sweet from being bloody. 

My mind clears more with every picture I grasp. 

Still I cannot sleep, 

still I cannot sleep. 

My wrist waits in impatience to grab the door, 

my legs to leap straight into the grass.



Still I cannot sleep, 

still I cannot sleep. 

But the fairytale is already ending. 

Tireless eyes still stare at the ceiling, 

mouth dry, even turned blue, 

hands sweaty from awaiting news for so long, 

hair pulled back close to my body, 

which does not want to move so early. 

My soul begins to bleed again; 

my mind, once cleared, fills with darkness. 

Well, perhaps it will be easy to close my eyes and only 

live so gloriously in my bright dreams. 

Still I cannot sleep, 

still I cannot sleep. 

sometimes you have to let go and let it happen

Before the moon illuminates the night:

When will you stop these sinister habit,

Devouring your countless good deeds from within?

How I miss the happy days

When poison didn’t bring out your demons to float.

This disgusting thing has you feeling so brave,

Washing away your eternity and rave.

Please, when will you break this curse

From our house, so bare that starts to feel like a cave?

When will I be able to come home late

And look for you out of care,

Not out of duty?

I want to love you because I want to,

Not because God decreed that I had to.

But every time the poisoned drink

Gets under your skin,

Thoughts and feelings-

Wrong and harmful-

Come to light

To drive people away and hide.

Will Mom ever be happy,

Or will she continue to look with hatred at the remnants

Of your beautiful past,

At the man I once called dad,

While now I look with a disdain so sweet?

If disdain is sweet,

Then

Is there any chance for change,

Or is this just a figment of my imagination,

Craving a little humility?

I want to run through the vast meadow again

Without worrying whether you're gone,

But you are there,

Sitting on the couch

With a glass in hand,

Unwilling to change.

When or what will help you, Dad,

To leave the poison behind, so sweetly?

When will I be able to look at you with acceptance

Instead of anger and disdain?

Please, change-

Or stay this way,

Because this is how you will be forever in dreams.

And dreams are deceptive,

They always tell lies,

Or maybe they taught me

To never trust twice..

Sleepless nights consume my dreams-

Where and when they will end?

They have no end….

The moon shines outside, above my window,

Illuminating everything, even my shame.

How I wish to see those endless eyes,

To sink into them, even if I drown.

I see you at the door across,

Coming home from a night spent in a haze.

How I want to run and grab your face,

Which is filled with stardust spots.

You are my moon,

But I am that darkness

Which comes after an exquisite light.

How I wish we were fused up there

On the endless night ceiling.

Now I walk down the street in the daylight.

Looking around to gaze upon you-

Feet moving without direction

Eyes looking without aim.

I saw you in the corner of some inn,

Drifting away in some dream.

Lifting your head and waving your hand,

You rushed to me in ecstasy, smiled.

In that bright land,

Took my hand,

And we set off to wander without a plan.

Where did you go again,

When anxiety hung from my ceiling?

The thoughtless feeling of a strength-filled gown

Turned into Ashes of the dawn.

You are off somewhere, accustomed once again,

While I am sunken in my shame.

I thought the truth was hidden in the ceiling I stared at every morning while you slept beside me.

I thought the glances that made my heart beat faster and faster were full of love.

I thought the hand holding mine gave me strength.

I thought the mouth I melted into gave me everything I ever needed.

I thought the words you spoke were sincere.

I thought that when you said "I love you," I didn't need anything or anyone else.

I thought we would be together until the end of the world.

I thought your tears welled up from a bleeding heart just like mine when it was time for us to part.

I thought the feet that walked so purposefully toward me would bring you back again.

I thought our love was enough to fix everything.

I thought…

I thought…

that I was so naive.

And whatever we had was just there

to put us to sleep

къщата, от която започна всичко, изглежда все толкова празна, но пълна с живот. the house where it all started looks the same as the day I ran away from it, yet it’s suffocatingly full of life. the people walking through these rooms still have the same slouched postures, sipping their coffee from the same old porcelane cups, having the exact same toxic dynamic that nearly destroyed me, the one that made me question evrything around me, even myself. but i have changed now, even if these walls, тези хора and those people refuse to recognize it.

Jinx.

i was always the loose cannon in their fragile ecosystem. the poison that was dripping slowly into their picture-perfect image, their well made societal coverage. the black sheep, the youngest, the reckless girl who lacked the decency to keep her mouth shut. i was the only one who wasn’t afraid to look them dead in the eye and state the ugly truth - to tell them exactly what they did wrong and how much they destroyed me the process, how much their words hurt and how they mean nothing to me now.

Jinx.

so i packed a bag and left. but leaving a house is easy but the memories clunged прилепнали to my skin like a smoke after a house fire and memeries love resurfacing whenever they please, even if you want to erease them forever.they just keep reminding you of the things you so desperately want to forget as in openining the same page over and over because you thought that you forgot the plot.

Jinx.

then i met him.. i told him that everyone who gets close to me ends up hurt. but that was the real kicker, wasn’t it? he was the exact kind of guy who loves to get in close.

Jinx.

he is gone. he left before the curse. before the poison entered his blood. before the bad luck wrapped itself around his soul. before he could blame me for his misfortune. before i could let him get as close as he wanted to.

Jinx.

i am glad.

Jinx.

now, i’ve walked back through the front door. everyone here is frozen in time, waiting for me to slip back into my assigned role as the family disaster. but i’m different now. at first, they thought it was something like a phase, but now they see the reality of who i’ve become and they absolutely hate it.

Jinx.

They look at me with disgust. A woman like me? Unapologetic? Weird? Rejecting the neat little boxes they built for me? Refusing to be a mother just to fulfill their legacy? Turning my back on marriage because I refuse to be owned?

Jinx.

she hates it most of all. she despises every breath of freedom I take, because every step I walk forward highlights how trapped she chose to stay. society wrote the script meant for every woman(or so they thought) - make sure she’s married or dead by the end of it and I chose to rip up the page.

Jinx.

maybe this rebelion is dangerous. but the fire inside me isn’t cooling down. it just keeps consuming everything it touches.

Jinx.

god, I’m so tired. i’m scared to my core, and despite all my bravado, i am completely alone in this room.

Jinx.

every corridor brings old memories, shadows of the people I used to love, the friends and family I thought I knew. but those people don’t exist anymore. they moved on, adapting to the poison until it tasted like water to them. i’m the only one stuck in the middle, caught between who I was and who I’m becoming. did I actually break free, or am i just pacing inside a slightly bigger cage?

Jinx.

what am I going to do now? stand my ground or run again?

Jinx.

do I finally break this cycle once and for all?

Jinx.

or will this cycle do what it always promised to do, and break me instead?

real life footage of me

i miss you. i crave you as much as i crave a cigarette early in the morning when the world is still quiet, when the morning sun is holding back its heat, when the air is brisk, and my hair is untamed. the only thing on my mind is my addiction: the flick of the metal lighter you gave me two years ago because you knew i’d love it. and i did. i still do.

i long for your smile,the one that makes me light up. you were never the kind of person to light up a whole room, but you were the flame in my life that kept the fire alive. you were that spark before the burn - the familiar heat I’d reach for whenever I needed relief, felt overwhelmed, or was unexpectedly happy. loving you felt like breathing in thick smoke: comforting, intoxicating, and completely filling up my chest until there was no room left for anything else.

it makes me remember the times i’d run to you for comfort, for fun, for love. i loved the vulnerability you brought out in me. i loved the happiness, the sadness, and even the fights, rare as they were. you were always patient with me, letting me express every heavy burden before pulling me into a hug, kissing my forehead, and promising that everything would be alright.

well, you’re a liar.

i miss you. i miss your curly hair that changed shape every day depending on the air. you told me it was the humidity, so i spent hours researching how to help, eventually buying you a banana-scented shampoo. i remember the amused spark in your eyes and how thankful you were, even though i don’t think the shampoo actually did a single thing.

i miss your escapes whenever i tried to sleep in - the soft pat on my hair and the kiss before you left. every time you tried to be quiet, i’d hear you and wake up, but i always pretended to be asleep so you wouldn’t feel guilty for waking me.

whenever you felt sad, you tried your best to hide it by filling the space with words, wrapping your grief in a cloud of noise. but we both knew you hated empty words, so ironically that’s how i always coaxed the truth out of you. then we would cry: you because you were sad, and me because i hated watching you go through pain.

i miss your lips, which always left a lingering taste of cinnamon mixed with the faint bitter edge of tobacco. you loved putting cinnamon in your coffee - a strange habit, but one I adored.

i was terrified to move on. the hope of you showing up at my door at 1:00 am with that lazy smile and those beautiful dark eyes - eyes deep enough to swallow me whole kept me waiting in the cold. i sat there holding onto the memory of us, watching time burn down like a cigarette forgotten between two fingers, slowly turning to ash. i dreaded letting go, but i got lost in the waiting. i think i was too blind to see the damage i had caused until the fire was already out.

i quit smoking for you because you became my true addiction. but now that you’re gone, the only things i have left of you are a bronze lighter, a pocketful of cold ash, and a habit that feels like it will never go away.

Sometimes, I wish I could get some kind of amnesia so I could forget everyone and everything bad that has happened to me.. Maybe then I could reshape my perspective and finally find some happiness. But I’m not getting amnesia anytime soon (hopefully), which means I have to bear the weight of dealing with these memories on my own.

To my ex-best friends, who made me cautious every time I make a new friend; to the people who made me lock my heart because I never wanted to experience such betrayal again:

I want to remember you by our late-night video calls and the three of us sitting in the backyard of Selina’s house, laughing until our cheeks and stomachs hurt. I’ll remember us by our inside jokes and our Friday night ritual of date nights—talking about everything from boys to politics, what outfits we’d wear with our future husbands or which teacher acted the craziest.

I want to forget the time I believed you would never betray me, right before you decided to expose my soul to everyone else. I want to forget how you replaced me at the very first chance you got and started doing everything we used to do with other people. I want to forget overhearing you and my replacement talking about Friday date nights as if I wasn't even there.

I’m choosing to remember the good and leave the rest behind, mostly because I owe that to myself. I deserve real friends—people I can count on, cry to, and trust to care about me as much as I care about them.I owe it to myself to know that when people wrong me, it isn't my fault, nor should I feel responsible for their personal choices. I can feel pain and be hurt without blaming myself for something I had no role in.

They were too immature to just sit down and talk it out. Instead, they chose to kick me while I was already down, and that made them terrible friends. But if they feel guilt and try to apologize, I will forgive them, not to give them a second chance, but because I no longer want to carry the burden of other people on my shoulders. For once in my life, I deserve to feel free.

To my parents, who brought me into this world unprepared, equipped with nothing but their own demons:

I feel sorry for you both. For my mom, who accepted a life she never wanted. For my dad, who loved in his own twisted way, but had an addiction that took away everything good he had, the love of his wife and kids, his kindness, and his pride.

If I had to recall the bad memories with my mom, I’d only have a few, because she really is the best mom I could ever ask for. She isn't perfect; a lot of the time, she doesn't understand what I'm saying, her jokes can go too far, and I constantly have to over-explain things. But these days, I feel more patient than annoyed. Knowing the trauma she endured, I realize that if my own child got angry at me for not understanding something after everything I'd been through, I'd probably kick them out. She could have handled things differently and said fewer harsh words, but we all get angry and make mistakes. I don't even need to forgive or forget those moments, because she is who she is, and I love her whole self (even when she drives me crazy).

When it comes to my dad, if I had to forget certain aspects of him, I think I’d want to forget his whole existence. When you weigh the good and the bad on a scale, and the bad outweighs the good a thousand times over, it’s really hard to justify it. Yet, I still want to remember him through the eyes of my eight-year-old self: the little girl who loved her dad more than anything, who couldn't understand why he was so broken, and who masked her fear with love and kindness.

My favorite memories of my dad are the times he would take me to work. I’d sit outside or with his coworkers, then pop in to bother him with nonsense while he just laughed. Afterwards, we’d go eat at a little corner restaurant. I’d get meat patties with salad, and he’d get the same with bean salad on the side. We’d eat super soft bread and drink something cold. On the bus ride home, he’d hold my hand the entire way, answering my endless questions and telling stories from his past like his time in Moscow or when he was an army cook. I loved those stories, even if the details have faded now.

I choose to forget the abuse he made my mom endure when he drank. I want to forget the complete transformation he had whenever alcohol entered his system. As well as the words and sights I was forced to witness. Instead, I’ll remember him as the man who held my hand while I was still figuring out the world, because at his core, he was capable of being kind and deeply loving.

I’d like to speak to that younger version of myself again and tell her that people change, and that’s completely okay because she will change, too. What matters most at the end of the day is how you choose to remember them. That choice carries more weight than you think. When you let go of the bad and keep the good, you stop letting their damage define you. Only then can you open your heart and give new people a real chance

While growing up, I wanted to become someone great—someone people would look up to, someone who would stand for what’s right and protect the people who need protection. But I grew up and realized that I cannot do any of that when I can’t even protect myself.

I have given myself so many empty promises that everything will get better, and with it, I will as well. But in the end, neither worked: I’m the same old miserable girl living the same miserable life.

I like to blame a lot of people for it: my family, my friends, my environment, the people around me. But the one who has always been at fault—the one most at fault—is me.

If I had been a little braver at certain moments, if I had taken bigger risks, would I have been better? Maybe been somewhere better?

Honestly, the environment I grew up in played a huge role in the way I turned out. With a mom who would accept everything no matter how bad and damaging it was, and a dad who is an emotionally unavailable narcissist whose only concern was his own good, I turned out the way I am. And unfortunately, I think I’m a mix of both.

I’m selfish. I thought that I was a good person, but I have started to realize how selfish and fucked up I am. And the good that I thought I had was actually a pretense so people wouldn’t see the true me—because someone seeing me for who I am is more terrifying than people seeing the well-made-up version.

It’s not easy to live a life where you constantly pretend to be someone else, so I distanced myself from everyone, and now I can say that I don’t have any more friends. Sometimes I like to say that it's for my own good, because they weren’t exactly the greatest friends—there were a lot of conflicts of interest—but maybe I’m trying to put the blame on someone else again?

Truthfully, I hate the way I turned out, and the thing I dreaded the most was being weak. Because I can’t handle the fact that I know I could do better, but I can’t bring myself to. Not because I don’t want to, but because I don't have the strength to fight anymore. Maybe I will get better and everything will change, or maybe I’ll die regretting what I've become.

So don’t do the same thing as me. Fight for your own future and, most importantly, yourself.

The memory that still haunts me most vividly is the day he almost burned our house to the ground over a baseless rumor. I’ve noticed an ironic pattern in my life: every time something deeply traumatic happens, it’s always summer, or the sun is at its brightest. Maybe that's just when I notice it most.

That day, my mother was working abroad. Small-town gossipers, the usual types, decided to fill my father’s head with stories, claiming women who went abroad only did so to run around with other men. My mother was many things, but she had immense pride. Despite how terribly my father treated her, she would never do something like that. But reason didn't matter. In his reckless rage, my father decided the only logical output for his anger was to set our home on fire.

I was ten years old, standing barefoot in the garden, watching the whole thing unfold. I suppose he was kind enough to warn me first. He carried a few bundles of clothes outside to save them, then took a can of gasoline and soaked everything inside the house. I stood there clutching a little black Nokia, sobbing hysterically, completely terrified. The cruelest part was the soundtrack to it all—the distant laughter of the neighborhood kids playing nearby, oblivious.

He didn't end up going through with it; my brother arrived just in time to stop him. But I’ve never forgotten the sheer panic and helplessness of that moment.

From that day on, I never walked outside barefoot again. It wasn't because I thought the dirt was gross. It was because feeling the rough, imperfect earth under my feet brought back the weight of a childhood shaped by chaos—and the painful truths that made me who I am today.

The day after I killed myself would probably scar the person who saw me lying lifeless on the floor. My dog would probably try to come inside for his daily walk, but the door would never be opened again.

The only place of solace I ever had in my house… my room, would probably be untouched for a while, and no one would dare enter it, because all they ever did before was come in without knocking. Maybe my family would think that they should have done that one more time sooner.

My mom would cry the most; she would spend a lot of time blaming herself for what happened. But she would accept it—that’s the thing she has done her whole life, after all. She would blame herself for it, while knowing that I had stated she never had any fault in it.

My dad would probably cry, or he would in front of people. Once he got drunk once again, he would give an Oscar-worthy performance in front of his relatives (because that’s what he always did). But I won’t be there to tell them that he is just pretending once again. He would probably take the remaining cigarettes from my pack and smoke them so “they don’t go to waste.” He won’t blame himself for it—no, he never has any fault, even though he has sinned the most. He won’t even try searching for a reason, but he will spout some nonsense about why I must have done it.

My brothers will be sad, probably more than I’d imagine. They will cry for me, and they will cry for themselves. They'll probably be scared because, after seeing me like that, they will start imagining all the moments we had together—the good and the bad (surprisingly, the bad ones were rare, almost never happened). Eventually, they will move on, because they have to, because they have lives, and kids. And maybe this will push them to be better parents. Be more gentle, understanding, kind. Try not to let their kids go through what I did. Even though they always said that they should be a little more like me, maybe they will regret saying that. And then, becoming like me would turn into their worst nightmare.

But they will move on.

As for my friends, I don’t have that many. Not real friends, at least. Not the type of ones you call family. They will cry, that’s for sure. Maybe feel guilty that I shared my burden with them, but they never cared enough to actually care. Maybe they will mourn me for a while. Remember everything good we shared. The memories of us running around the city at 1 a.m. while splashing each other with water from our water bottles. The midnight adventures to another city we had never been to. Maybe they will remember me as someone kind, or someone ignorant, or someone too depressed. I’d like to think that they will remember me fondly, because I will remember them that way.

They will move on.

My dog would mourn me. He would try coming to my room. Scratch the door. Maybe wonder why I haven’t come out of there with his favorite snacks, saying, “It’s time for a walk, buddy!” Maybe he will realize what happened. He will be sad. He was my best friend, after all. And I’d like to think that I was his. But over time, once the kids grow up a little more, they will start taking care of him.

And he will move on.

My mom wouldn’t.

She never will.

We’ve all heard the platitude: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” It’s the kind of thing people say when they don't know what else to do with your pain. And sure, there’s a grain of truth in it. We go through hardships—some of us lose people, some of us lose versions of ourselves, and some of us are just trying to survive the weight of being alive. We do get “stronger.” We build walls, we toughen our skin, and we learn how to take a hit.

But I’ve started to realize that this "strength" is a double-edged sword. While it keeps you upright, it can slowly strip away the very sense of livelihood you fought so hard to sustain in the first place. You end up surviving the battle, but losing the reason you wanted to live.

I look around, and I see it in all of us. We all have our "things"—the rituals we’ve created to make sure the world can’t get a clean shot at us.

For some, it’s the physical edits: using food to fill a void that feels bottomless, or restricting it to feel a sense of mastery over a chaotic world. For others, it’s substance abuse—that desperate need to turn down the volume of a reality that is playing way too loud.

Then there are the more modern escapes. We doomscroll for hours, drowning our anxiety in a flood of other people's problems and digital noise, just so we don't have to sit in the silence of our own rooms. Or we retreat into daydreaming, constructing elaborate alternate lives in our heads where we are safe, loved, or successful, all to avoid the friction of the life we are actually standing in.

We do these things—along with the reckless risks we take just to feel a spark—so we can look at the world and say, "See? It doesn't bother me." But in reality, it is affecting us. If the debt doesn't come due today, it hits tomorrow. We are using these distractions to buy time, but we’re paying for it with our vitality.

There’s a biological reason we do this. When we hit a hardship, our "fight or flight" response kicks in. We rev the engine to fight the danger or we run like hell to find safety.

But what happens when the hardship isn't a one-time event? What happens when it’s just... life?

We stay in that revved-up state. We become high-functioning ghosts. We look strong because we’ve learned how to numb the "bother," but that numbness is a poison. When you use doomscrolling or substances to shut down your ability to feel the pain, you accidentally shut down your ability to feel the sun on your face or the simple peace of a quiet afternoon. You aren't "stronger"; you're just further away from yourself.

We build these mechanisms because, at one point, we had to. There is no shame in having a coping mechanism that saved your life. But we have to be honest with ourselves: is the shield now heavier than the threat?

It’s terrifying to think about letting go of the daydream or putting down the phone. It feels like stepping out into a storm without a coat. But I’ve learned that if we don't eventually lay down the arms we die inside the armor.

We have to be willing to let life "bother" us again, because that's the only way we get our livelihood back.

It’s a long road back to feeling alive, but we don't have to walk it alone.

I was sitting in my car the other night, engine off, just watching the rain smear the streetlights, and I realised I was holding my breath.

I’d just come from a dinner where someone— thoughtful someone—had looked at me a little too long. They’d asked a question that wasn't just small talk. And my immediate, physical instinct wasn’t "Oh, how nice." It was: Run. Pull the shutters down and burn the bridge before they can cross it.

People talk about the "fear of love" like it’s this poetic, Victorian affliction. But in reality, it feels a lot more like a panic attack.

The truth is, being alone is easy. I’ve become an expert at it. When you’re alone, you’re the author of your own story. You can curate the version of yourself that the world sees—the funny one, the productive one, the one who has it all together.

But love? Love feels like a home invasion.

It’s someone seeing you at 3:00 AM when you’re not "on." It’s someone noticing the way you over-explain things when you’re nervous or the way you pull away when things get too heavy. The fear of love is really just the fear that if someone sees the basement of your soul—the part with the dust and the boxes of old regrets—they’re going to turn around and walk out.

And the thought of that door closing is much scarier than the thought of never opening it at all.

I’ve noticed that when I start to like someone, I start looking for the "Exit" signs. I look for the flaw. I pick apart a sentence they said. I tell myself, "They’re too nice," or "They don’t get my humor," or some other lie designed to keep me safe.

We convince ourselves we’re being "selective" or "protecting our peace." But the truth is that we treat our hearts like a fine china set that’s too expensive to actually use, so we keep it locked behind glass where it’s safe, shiny, and completely useless.

There’s this quote by C.S. Lewis.

the only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love is Hell.

If you don’t want to get hurt, you have to lock your heart up tight. You have to avoid every spark, every touch, every meaningful glance. You’ll be safe, sure. But you’ll be encased in a coffin of your own making.

I’m still scared. I think I’ll always be a little bit scared. Because love is a risk. It asks you to admit that you aren't enough on your own. It asks you to be vulnerable in a world that rewards being bulletproof.

But maybe the point isn't to wait until the fear goes away. Maybe the point is to let your heart beat fast, let your palms get sweaty, and open the door anyway. because the alternative: the silence of a perfectly "safe" life is much more terrifying.

Author’s note: Does anyone else find themselves picking fights or pulling away just when things start to get good? Or is it just me? I’d love to hear how you deal with the "urge to run".

The self wakes before it is asked to. It opens its eyes already late to its own life, already burdened with the ancient labor of being someone. Before thought, before intention, there it is—this stubborn “I,” clinging like a shadow that cannot be outrun, even in darkness.

To exist as a self is to be sentenced without trial. We are thrown into names we did not choose, histories we did not author, bodies that ache, desire, decay. The self is a tenant in a house it did not build, paying rent in worry, nostalgia, and fear of eviction by time. It wants permanence in a world fluent only in leaving.

What damns the self is not suffering alone, but awareness. A stone endures without complaint; an animal hungers and rests in cycles of honest necessity. But the self knows it will end—and knows that it knows. Consciousness sharpens pain into meaning, turns loss into story, regret into identity. Memory becomes a courtroom where the self prosecutes itself endlessly, replaying evidence it cannot erase.

The self is split by design. It watches itself act, then judges the performance. It desires authenticity, yet performs constantly. It longs to be whole, yet survives by fracture—public and private, thought and speech, hope and resignation. Even solitude is crowded with internal voices rehearsing old conversations, preparing for futures that may never arrive.

And still, the self insists. It loves despite evidence. It dreams while fully aware of disappointment’s excellent memory. It reaches toward others, seeking mirrors that might confirm its reality, even as it fears being seen too clearly. To be a self is to oscillate between craving recognition and wanting to disappear.

Perhaps damnation is too harsh a word. Or perhaps it is precise. The self is damned not because it is evil, but because it cannot escape itself. There is no outside vantage point from which to rest. Even attempts at transcendence—art, faith, philosophy—are carried out by the very self they seek to dissolve. The prison is clever: the key is forged from the same metal as the bars.

Yet within this curse lies a strange mercy. Because the self suffers, it can recognize suffering. Because it is finite, it can cherish. Because it doubts, it can ask. The same awareness that wounds also illuminates. The self can bend toward kindness, toward meaning, toward beauty—not as salvation, but as defiance.

To exist as a self is to walk a narrow ridge between absurdity and wonder. We are condemned to narrate our lives, to search for coherence in fragments, to love things that will not stay. But in choosing, again and again, to speak, to create, to care—we transform damnation into something almost holy.

The self may be cursed to exist. But in that curse, it learns how to sing.

We are taught to believe that pain should sever love cleanly. That once someone wounds us deeply enough, the bond should dissolve like a broken contract. Yet in real life, memory does not obey moral logic. The heart does not keep score the way reason does. It remembers laughter just as vividly as cruelty, tenderness just as clearly as neglect. When I miss the people who hurt me, I am not longing for the harm itself—I am longing for the version of connection that once felt real, or at least felt alive.

Often, those who hurt us are also those who knew us most intimately. They saw our unguarded selves, our unpolished thoughts, our softest fears. There is comfort in being known, even if that knowledge was later used carelessly. To be understood, even briefly, leaves a mark. And when that understanding disappears, it can feel like losing a language only two people spoke. Missing them is sometimes just missing the feeling of being seen.

There is also the cruel hope embedded in memory. We replay moments not as they were, but as they could have been. The mind edits the past, softening sharp edges, amplifying warmth, convincing us that maybe the hurt was accidental, or temporary, or fixable. In this way, nostalgia becomes a form of self-protection. It allows us to believe that what we lost was meaningful, that our suffering had a reason, that we were not foolish for caring.

But missing someone who hurt you can also be a form of mourning—not for them, but for yourself. For the version of you who loved more freely, who trusted more easily, who hadn’t yet learned how deeply words and silences can cut. When they left—or when you had to leave—you lost more than a relationship. You lost innocence, expectations, a future you had quietly rehearsed. Sometimes what aches is not the person, but the life you imagined alongside them.

There is a temptation to judge ourselves harshly for this kind of longing. To say, If they hurt me, why do I still care? What does that say about me? But pain does not erase attachment; it complicates it. To miss someone who hurt you does not mean you forgive them. It does not mean you want them back. It means you are human—capable of holding grief without rewriting history, capable of acknowledging love without denying damage.

Healing, then, is not about forcing yourself to forget. It is about learning to let memory exist without control over your present. You can miss them and still choose yourself. You can honor what was real without reopening wounds. Growth does not require emotional amnesia; it requires honesty. And honesty admits that love and harm can come from the same hands.

One day, the missing changes. It becomes quieter, less demanding. It turns into a recognition rather than a longing—a soft understanding that some people were chapters, not conclusions. They shaped you, even through pain. And while you do not wish to return to that story, you can still acknowledge that it mattered.

I miss the people that hurt me. Not because the hurt was acceptable, but because the connection was real. And accepting that truth, without shame, is part of learning how to love without abandoning myself again.

Whatever you go through, someone else is going through too. Maybe not at the same time, or in the same place, but with the same feelings, the same roots, the same pain. Let me explain.

For years, I struggled with the same family and eating issues, believing they were uniquely mine. Then one sunny day, I met someone with those exact problems. The only difference was how we lived through them—what we learned, what we feared, and how we coped. Then I met another person. And another. We lived in different towns, on different continents, with different beliefs, yet somehow our stories overlapped.

So how is it that strangers live parallel lives?

I like to imagine that fate repeats certain experiences to see how different people will react—like it’s running the same experiment with infinite variations. Or maybe fate is simply too tired to write new plots (kidding… sort of).

The truth is, our connection is both more and less than what we think. When we don’t notice it, the connection feels vast and mysterious. When we do notice it, it feels obvious and simple. Strange, isn’t it?

Maybe the more we try to explain it, the smaller it becomes. But the moment we stop trying, it becomes everything.