i really do.

the funny part is… apologies don’t actually fix much for me. they don’t erase memories. they don’t undo words. they don’t make my nervous system forget what it felt like to be yelled at.

but for some reason, i’m still yearning for one.

not because i think it changes what’s next for us.

because i don’t even know if i’d want there to be a next for us anymore.

i’ve been yelled at.

i’ve been called names.

i’ve sat in the same room as you and somehow still felt completely alone.

i’ve been invited somewhere only to leave wondering if i was ever wanted there in the first place.

those moments don’t disappear because enough time passes.

they stay.

and that’s the part i’m grieving.

people assume that when you express your hurt, you’re refusing to acknowledge the hurt you’ve caused.

i’ve never understood that.

can’t both things exist?

can’t i admit that i was wrong while also believing you were too?

i apologized because i knew i said things i shouldn’t have. i never claimed to be innocent.

but somewhere along the way, the conversation became entirely about how i made you feel.

mine got left behind.

that’s the hardest part.

not losing you.

losing the chance to feel understood by someone i loved.

there’s no “us.”

i wanted there to be.

if i’m honest, i probably would’ve done almost anything to make it work.

that’s not romantic.

that’s something i’m still learning about myself.

i love hard.

sometimes harder than i love myself.

and maybe that’s why i’m still waiting for an apology that may never come.

not because i think it’ll change the ending.

it won’t.

i don’t think it suddenly makes us compatible.

it doesn’t erase the nights i cried or the confusion or the names i was called.

but an apology says something simple.

“i know i hurt you.”

that’s all.

not “let’s try again.”

not “i miss you.”

not “i made the right choice.”

just…

“i know i hurt you.”

maybe i’ll never hear those words.

maybe this is me accepting that.

because healing was never supposed to depend on whether someone else became the person i needed them to be.

still…

some nights, i won’t lie

i wish they would’ve said sorry.

i don’t believe that anymore.

i love you.

i think i always will in some way.

it’s strange to admit because, if i’m honest, i’ve never felt this way about anyone before.

i’ve been in relationships.

i’ve confused comfort for love, chemistry for compatibility, infatuation for connection.

but whatever existed between us was different.

deeper.

louder.

softer.

somehow all at once.

you found a place in my heart that nobody else has ever touched.

i still don’t know how you got there.

and despite everything, i’m grateful you did.

after all the disappointment i’d experienced before you, i wouldn’t have known i was capable of loving someone like this.

you reminded me that i was.

that’s something i’ll always be thankful for.

but love isn’t supposed to feel like surviving the same wound over and over again.

somewhere along the way, we became fluent in hurting each other.

we built a home inside a cycle.

the apologies became familiar.

the distance became predictable.

the hope kept convincing me that this time would be different because now we knew better.

that’s the part i keep coming back to.

we know enough now.

we know what hurts each other.

we know what silence feels like.

we know what reassurance sounds like.

we know how to reach for each other.

and somehow, we kept reaching for the things that pushed us further apart.

i’ve spent so much time asking myself where i went wrong.

replaying conversations until i could recite them from memory.

apologizing for things i wish i had handled differently.

learning how to approach you with more patience.

growing.

trying.

hoping.

so why are we still here?

why does it still hurt the same?

i’m getting older.

and i don’t mean that in the dramatic, life is passing me by kind of way.

i mean i’m finally realizing that healing isn’t just learning better communication.

sometimes healing is accepting that two people can know exactly what the problem is…

and still be unable to stop creating it.

maybe that’s what breaking a cycle really is.

not waiting until you stop loving someone.

not waiting until they become the villain.

not waiting until every beautiful memory disappears.

maybe it’s choosing yourself while your heart is still begging you to stay.

that’s the cruel part.

people always talk about leaving when the love is gone.

they never prepare you for leaving while it’s still there.

i still love the way you smell.

i still think about reaching for the back of your neck while you’re driving.

i still remember the way my fingers would find your earlobes without me even thinking about it.

like my hands had memorized you before i realized they had.

those tiny moments became home to me.

i still remember every quiet moment that made me believe we could become the people we promised we’d be.

none of those memories disappeared.

i never thought i would hear those words come out of your mouth.

if i’m honest, i used to think i’d probably have to die before i ever heard you tell me you loved me.

that’s how impossible it felt.

you weren’t someone who expressed your feelings easily.

so when you finally said it…

i wasn’t expecting everything to change.

i knew it wouldn’t.

i knew we weren’t suddenly going to wake up and become the version of us i had always dreamed about.

but for one moment…

i felt like i wasn’t alone anymore.

a few days before you said it, i had finally admitted something to myself.

i loved you.

i had been fighting that feeling for so long because i was scared of what it would mean once i stopped denying it.

loving you meant giving someone the power to hurt me in ways nobody else ever had.

and then you said it.

and i remember thinking,

i’m not alone in this anymore.

that moment meant more to me than you’ll probably ever know.

i wanted you to be the one.

i wanted to give all of myself to you.

i wanted you to feel how deeply i cared.

not just hear me say it.

actually feel it.

i wanted to become the safest place in your life.

i wanted you to know you could lean on me.

trust me.

ask me.

need me.

want me around.

i wanted you to know that no matter what happened…

i had your back.

if you called,

i answered.

if you needed me,

i’d find a way.

showing up for the people i love has never been something i struggle with.

it’s who i am.

i loved you enough to love your flaws too.

i’ve said it before.

i don’t think you’re flawless.

i just think you’re perfect to me.

maybe that’s the difference.

somewhere along the way, i realized i was constantly shrinking my own love.

i tiptoed around my feelings because i never really knew where i stood with you.

some days i felt close to you.

other days i felt like i was asking for too much just by wanting reassurance.

your words.

your actions.

the way you handled conflict.

the way you handled me.

they rarely told the same story.

i was always trying to figure out where you placed me in your life.

i wanted to love you freely.

instead…

i found myself making my feelings smaller.

holding back.

trying not to ask for too much.

trying not to be too emotional.

trying not to push you away.

i convinced myself that if i loved you quietly enough…

maybe it would become easier for you to love me.

it didn’t.

i don’t think you ever understood how easy it was for me to choose you.

i wanted you to be the one.

if i’m honest…

at this moment…

i still do.

and maybe that’s the hardest part.

leaving would’ve been so much easier if i didn’t still believe, somewhere deep inside me, that we could’ve been something beautiful.

i still believe there was a version of us that made it.

a version where we stopped hurting each other.

a version where we chose each other every day instead of choosing fear…

or pride…

or silence.

i don’t think i’ll ever stop wondering about that version.

but wondering isn’t the same thing as living.

i can’t keep living for the people we could’ve been while losing the people we actually became.

what hurts the most isn’t even the ending.

it’s the silence.

no reply from the person i love.

no “have a safe flight.”

no “i love you too.”

no “i hope you’re okay.”

no “i wish you the best.”

just silence.

i’m used to it now.

somehow…

it’s always silence.

i don’t know what your heart feels like today.

maybe you’re hurting too.

maybe we’re both aching in different rooms, carrying the same loss in completely different ways.

i honestly don’t know.

what i do know…

is what it feels like on this side of the silence.

it feels like grieving someone who is still alive.

it feels lonely.

love spoken and love experienced are not always the same thing.

i never questioned whether you meant it.

i questioned why i couldn’t always feel it.

even after all of this…

i pray for you.

i pray that you find peace.

i pray that you succeed in everything you set your heart on.

i pray that your dreams become your reality.

i pray that the people you choose to keep close to you love you well.

that they support you.

that they remind you that you never have to carry life by yourself.

i pray that no one hurts you.

i pray that you laugh often.

that life is kind to you.

i could never hate you.

i don’t think i ever will.

i could never wish anything bad on you.

because that’s part of how i love.

even when i can’t stay…

i still want good things for you.

i still want you to become the man you’ve always wanted to be.

and i genuinely hope you do.

i just finally realized…

i can’t lose myself waiting for the day we become the people i always hoped we’d be.

because i love you.

i wanted you to be my forever.

and maybe, in another life…

we were.

but in this one…

love wasn’t the thing that defeated us.

the cycle was.

not because the feelings return suddenly, but because you realize they never fully left. they just became quieter. easier to manage. easier to tuck into smaller corners of yourself.

i used to think the end of a relationship meant the end of the connection too. that eventually two people become strangers if enough time passes. but i’m beginning to think some people remain familiar to you no matter how much distance you place between each other.

i saw someone recently who once occupied a huge part of my inner world. the strange part wasn’t the attraction or the chemistry. it was how natural everything still felt. like no time had passed at all. like our conversations had only been paused somewhere in the middle.

we laughed easily. teased each other the way we used to and i remember thinking about how intimacy sometimes survives in the smallest gestures.

and i think that scared me more than anything.

we spent a lot of time misunderstanding each other when we were together. not because we lacked care, but because we both seemed to interpret things through fear before truth. small moments became loaded. delayed responses became rejection. hesitation became indifference. independence became emotional distance.

the reality was usually much softer than the stories we told ourselves.

even now, we found ourselves accidentally doing the same thing. reading too deeply into wording, timing, assumptions. two people trying not to feel unwanted by the other.

there’s a particular sadness in caring deeply for someone while simultaneously trying not to reveal just how much you care. i think we both did that constantly.

it made me realize how many relationships don’t collapse from a lack of love, but from an inability to communicate love clearly enough for the other person to feel safe inside of it.

what surprised me most was how tender everything still felt, maybe even more than i remembered. the familiarity of sitting beside someone who already knows your mannerisms. someone remembering small details about you without trying. someone looking at you in a way that quietly says, “i still see who you are becoming.”

there was no grand resolution. no dramatic rekindling. just two people finally speaking more honestly than they used to.

and maybe that’s enough for now.

i don’t know what role certain people are meant to play in our lives long term. i only know that some connections refuse to become meaningless no matter how much time passes. they evolve. they soften. they return in quieter forms.

maybe writing about someone over and over again isn’t always a sign that you’re stuck.

maybe sometimes it’s just proof that they changed you in a way your mind is still learning how to organize into language.

so i let them rest.
i let them dissolve into the quiet.

we never name it,
but there’s a certain kind of game
people play
without ever meaning to

the disappearing
the reappearing
the half-opened doors
the questions asked
then abandoned in the dark.

a game where no one wins
because everyone is afraid
of saying the real thing.

but i’ve learned this:
games don’t start with cruelty,
they start with uncertainty.
with wanting someone to understand you
without having to hand them the map.
with waiting for them
to meet you in the middle
while you’re still standing
at the edge.

and maybe that’s why i’m quiet now.
not because i have nothing to say,
but because i’ve finally understood
that not every truth
belongs to everyone.

some words bloom only
in the presence of someone
who knows how to listen.
who wants to.

and if the things i carry
fall into silence with them,
maybe that’s the answer.

maybe some things are better
left unsaid
not out of surrender,
but self-respect.

we would rather mentally loop on a feeling than act on it.

i believe it’s because we’re attached to the expectation of what we want the outcome to be. and if there’s even a chance things won’t go our way, we freeze. we avoid. we overthink. we let the fear win before we even give reality a chance.

and honestly?
i’m tired of this.

i feel things deeply, and i want to act on them.
i’m tired of pride.
i’m tired of wasting mental space arguing with myself over whether i should do something i already know i want to do.

in our generation, pride is stronger than honesty.
stronger than connection.
stronger than desire.

we will sit and think about reaching out to someone
a friend, a lover, someone from our past
for days.
we’ll stare at their name.
hover over the call button.
rewrite the same message fifteen times.
send screenshots to our friends.
wonder how it might look.
convince ourselves we’re doing “too much.”

and in the end, we do nothing.

we say it’s pride.

but really?

it’s fear.

fear of looking desperate.
fear of being the one who cares more.
fear of being misunderstood.
fear of reopening a wound.
fear of not getting the response we want.
fear of being exposed as someone who feels deeply.

our generation is obsessed with looking unbothered.

we’d rather protect the image of indifference than admit the truth of our emotions.
we’d rather miss opportunities than risk rejection.
we’d rather stay silent than look like we tried.

and i’m done with that.

i’m tired of treating my feelings like they’re something i need to hide.
i’m tired of trying to act like i don’t care when i do.
i’m tired of turning simple honesty into a strategy meeting.

at some point, pride stops being self-respect
and becomes self-sabotage.

and that’s what we’re doing. sabotaging ourselves.

there’s a difference between chasing and expressing.
a difference between lacking boundaries and being honest.
a difference between forcing something and giving your heart space to speak.

but somewhere along the way, we blurred that line.
we started acting like whoever feels less wins.
like vulnerability is losing.
like admitting you care is something to be embarrassed about.

i’m rejecting that.

i’m moving off feeling now.

if i want to reach out, i will.
if i want to call, i will.
if i want to tell someone “have a great day,” i will.
if i miss someone, i’ll say it.
if i want to apologize or express gratitude or share something that reminded me of them, i’ll do it.

not because i’m reckless.
not because i have no standards.
not because i’m chasing anything.

but because i refuse to betray myself to protect an image.

if it’s received well, beautiful.
if it’s not, that’s information.
maybe it stings.
maybe it lowers the chances of me doing it again.
maybe it clarifies who’s aligned with me and who’s not.

either way, at least i’ll know i acted in truth.

that’s the real win.

we spend so much time trying to control outcomes
that we forget the only thing we truly control
is how honest we’re willing to be.

you can’t control how someone responds.
you can’t control how you’re perceived.
you can’t control whether someone chooses you.

but you can control whether you showed up as your real self.

and i would rather be the person who cared openly
than the person who cared silently and pretended they didn’t.

so here’s where i’m at:

maybe pride isn’t strength.
maybe strength is saying what you feel
and letting the chips fall where they may.

maybe being “unbothered” isn’t maturity, it’s avoidance.

maybe the strongest person in the room
is the one who just sends the message.

we waste so much time thinking about doing.
imagining doing.
rehearsing doing.

but what if we just did?

who are you not reaching out to because you’re protecting your image?
who are you pretending not to miss?
what are you not saying because you’re scared of how it might look?

maybe it’s time we stop living from ego
and start living from alignment.

i am.

i wish we all believed and lived the idea that love is stronger than pride.
sade sung it best.

i wanted you, but wanting you came with weather
the kind that doesn’t wait for permission before it arrives
loving you meant learning the shape of every storm you carried,
the ones that were born long before me
yet somehow always found their way to my doorstep.

and for a while, i convinced myself it was fine.
that deep feeling was enough to anchor me,
that intensity could substitute for stability.
in a way, my feelings for you were so strong
they almost drowned out the sound of everything else.

i understood where your sharp edges came from.
i knew the anger wasn’t all yours,
that the distance wasn’t personal,
that the projections were the ghosts of the type of person that could hurt you.
i knew all of that
and still, it didn’t stop the impact.

being with you was a kind of constant translation.
reading shifts in tone like weather forecasts.
moving carefully around the parts of you
that didn’t know how to trust softness.
you could go from warm to cold
in the space of a breath,
from laughing with me
to cutting me down with a single fearful assumption.
sometimes both in the same day.
sometimes in the same hour.

and the worst part wasn’t the chaos itself,
but how quickly i adapted to it.
how easily i learned to quiet myself,
to overthink my words,
to make myself smaller
so your storms wouldn’t feel threatened by my presence.
it’s strange how love can turn self-erasure
into something that feels noble.

i kept reminding myself of your history
your trauma, your fears, the way your past haunted you.
i held that understanding like a map,
hoping it would guide me through us.
but maps don’t help when someone keeps changing the terrain.

eventually it started to feel like i was being punished
for sins i never committed.
like i was paying the debt of someone else’s betrayal,
carrying the weight of wounds that weren’t mine
but were treated as if they could be.

and yes, there was softness in you.
a real, quiet tenderness
that showed itself in moments so pure
they convinced me to stay.
almost convinced me
that if i loved you gently enough,
the storms would finally listen.

but love shouldn’t feel like surviving weather.
love shouldn’t make you flinch
when someone breathes differently.
love shouldn’t require you
to prove, over and over,
that you’re not the monster they’ve imagined.

i wanted you.
that part was real.
but i’m learning that wanting someone
doesn’t mean you have to lose yourself to keep them.
it doesn’t mean you have to stand in the middle of a hurricane
just because you’ve memorized the sound of their rain.

sometimes the bravest thing you can do
is step out from under the storm
and finally remember
what your own sky looks like.

I made the most perfect pot of rice yesterday and I don’t want to be dramatic, but I think that officially makes me an adult.

Not "I do my own Taxes" adult.
Not "I enjoy watching jeopardy" adult.
I'm talking about the kind of adult where you accidentally prove to yourself that you're capable and it scares you a little.

Here's why this matters: rice and I have beef.

I've made rice before. A few times. Enough times to know I hate making rice. It requires patience, silence, and restraint. Three things I don't naturally possess. Rice doesn't sizzle. Rice doesn't give updates. Rice just sits there quietly plotting your downfall. If you leave it alone too long, it burns. If you baby it too much, it turns into fucking paste. pardon my language. This is a touchy subject for me. I hate that there is no feedback given for real. The process is strictly just vibes and consequences.

And don't even get me started on mushy rice.

I love my rice dry. Sticky, yes. The kind of rice you eat with Jamaican curry chicken. Rice that holds its shape. Rice you can respect. I have attempted this rice before and failed in ways that confused me deeply because I followed the rules. The measurements. The instructions. The "don't lift the lid" and yet I still got mush.

So when I tell you that the idea for this meal came to me the night before, understand that this was already unusual behavior.

I was on TikTok (as one does) and saw a salmon rice bowl: salmon, white rice, avocado, sriracha mayo ( I was today years old when I realized its sriracha and not sriracha, thanks autocorrect.), cucumber salad, seaweed snacks on the side. And instead of scrolling past and forgetting it like a normal person, the thought lingered. It sat with me. I went to sleep thinking about it. I woke up still wanting it.

That should've been my first sign something was different.

The next day, I went to the store and bought ingredients specifically for that meal. No improvising. No "I'll figure it out when I get to the crib" I had a plan.

But the rice.
The rice was life or death. 

I call in reinforcements, my friend Joanne on FaceTime. Now, Joanne is a real one, but she has documented history of mushy rice. The night before, she made a batch that she described as "better than before" which was not that comforting but it was a safe place. It's crazy because we had once made perfect rice together during a salmon dinner in the past, so clearly lightning can strike.

I tell her the stakes. If the rice is mushy, I'm throwing the entire meal away. No salvaging. No positive spin. Straight to the trash.

She asked how much rice I used.

I tell her I don't know.

I didn't measure. I poured it out, washed it, and committed. She starts laughing. She's weak even. It was a concerned laughter like "Girl, you might've already fucked this up." But I was calm. Measuring was out of the question. This was about intuition now.

I put the washed rice in the pot and start eyeballing the water. And here's what I do know: too much water makes rice mushy. So I'm conservative. I pour less than usual and just stare at it. Joanne is staring too. We're both silent.

I say "Hmm. Maybe a little more."

She says, "No. That's enough."

I hesitate... and then add about three tablespoons of water. Not a splash. Not a pour. A decision. I felt confident, can't lie. What's three tablespoons gonna do? Everything, apparently.

Here was the method:
Bring to a boil.
Stir once.
Cover that shit.

But this time, I added aluminum foil under the lid. Seal it. Trap the steam. No escapes. I did not set a timer. I did not touch it. The rice cooked while I focused on the salmon and cucumber salad. It was in the background, quite literally on the eye in the back.

When I noticed the steam slow down, I turned the stove off and let it sit. Still covered. Still untouched.

At this point my heart is racing. Because the possibilities are endless and terrifying. It could be mushy. It could be burnt. It could even be both. Rice is capable of anything.

Finally, I lift the lid.

The excitement that took over my body once I seen that rice has to be studied.
I crowned myself. 

The rice was perfect. Perfectly sticky. Fully cooked. Not mushy. Not burnt. Even the bottom of the pot was clean. No crust. No Trauma.

This was not luck. This was mastery.

The bowl was incredible. Salmon on point. Cucumber salad crisp. Seaweed snacks added that texture. The rice, now the rice held everything together. Literally and emotionally.

I felt grown. Not because I cooked dinner, but because I planned it. Because I trusted myself. Because I didn't panic and overcorrect. Because I let something be.

I think adulthood sneaks up on you like that. It's not the big moments. It's the random Tuesday where you realize, "Oh. I can do this."

Anyway. I know how to make a mean pot of rice now.

Young hoes are up a milly.

Not knowing. Always confused. Always trying to figure out what’s wrong or what I’m doing wrong. I’ve become hesitant to speak, hesitant to ask, hesitant to offer myself. It’s the kind of hesitation that sits in your chest. Heavy, embarrassing, exhausting. The feeling isn’t good. The feeling isn’t home.

What hurts the most is being criticized for not being something I’m scared to be because of the type of person he is. It’s tough. I try not to shrink, but it’s hard. I’m always trying to keep things good, to keep the peace. Anything I say gets pulled apart. Observed. Misread. Interpreted in ways that are miles away from my actual intentions. It becomes a never-ending game, one I don’t want to keep playing.

I just want to love. To feel love without having to ask if everything is okay or if I’m allowed to offer closeness, help, affection. I know I shouldn’t need permission, but that’s what this dynamic has turned into. Loving someone who always says no. Who doesn’t want affection, or conversations, or the small everyday ways I show care. Loving someone who seems to reject the very things I have to give.

So I start asking instead of offering. Asking to help you. Asking to be with you. Asking to stay connected. And every time I brace myself for the no. I expect it. I plan for it. And it shuts me down. I can’t pretend it doesn’t.

I feel like I’m always doing something wrong. Like I don’t know how to move without stepping somewhere that will upset you. And I want this relationship, or at least I want the version of it where I don’t feel afraid to love the way I naturally love. But is this what the rest of it will feel like? A long corridor of second-guessing myself?

The truth is, I’ve changed. Some of it is growth, but some of it is a version of myself I don’t even like. I want to be myself again, fully, consistently, and if that self isn’t tolerable to you, then I’ll leave. Because I love myself more. I care about myself more. But that doesn’t make the emotional battle any quieter.

Are you angry at me? Did I do something wrong? Am I too affectionate? Do I turn cold? I’m stuck between extremes because I’m tired of trying to contort myself into the right kind of partner for someone who won’t meet me where I am.

So here’s where I land: I’m going to approach this relationship as myself. Completely. With my affection, my care, my desire for closeness. If that’s not something you want, then I’ll know. But I at least need to show up as the person I love being, not the person I’ve become out of fear.

I hope you reach back. I hope you tell me what you want, what you sees for us. I hope you meet me where I’m standing.

But if you don’t, then at least I’ll know I never abandoned myself trying to be loved.

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Sometimes you forget that you’re allowed to not know.
You’re allowed to be in-between versions of yourself.
You’re allowed to be someone who wants clarity but is still learning how to hold it.

There’s nothing wrong with being unsure, or quiet, or hesitant.
Hesitation isn’t failure. It’s your body whispering,
“I’ve been hurt before. Let me move slowly.”

And that slowness is not a flaw.
It’s wisdom. It’s self-protection. It’s proof that you’ve lived.

Your passions don’t need to burn at the same temperature every day.
Some days writing will feel like falling in love.
Some days it will feel like distance.
That’s not inconsistency
that’s a human being returning to themselves in waves.

And your tenderness in relationships, your emotional labor,
the way you try so hard to keep things “good”
none of that makes you weak.
It makes you someone who cares.
Someone trying.
Someone learning.

Trust doesn’t regrow in a single moment.
It returns in fragments.
In the quiet unclenching of your jaw.
In the small courage to speak again.
In the way your heart slowly steps out from behind its shield.

So here is the reminder, small but honest:

You are not behind.
You are not broken.
You don’t need to have everything figured out.

You’re just a person trying
trying to love things that shift,
trying to show up with a soft but tired heart,
trying to stay open without losing yourself.

And that is enough.
More than enough.

This season isn’t an ending.
It’s a recalibration.
A quiet rearranging.
A slow return to who you’re becoming.

Take your time.
You’re allowed to.

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I was sitting on the F, half-present, thinking about how easy it is to let certain experiences change you. Not in obvious ways, but subtly. Quietly. In the way you start holding back. In the way you second-guess how much of yourself you give.

I’ve been in situations where I showed up genuine and open, where I tried to communicate honestly and love fully. Whether in relationships, friendships, or family dynamics, I still walked away feeling small. Not because I did something wrong, but because my effort wasn’t met with the same care. Because I was made to question my tone, my intentions, my worth.

And I remember thinking afterward: Maybe I should be less soft. Maybe I should stop trying so hard. Maybe this is what people mean when they say you need to protect yourself.

That is usually the moment people call a villain era. The phase where you stop caring, stop giving, stop believing people deserve access to the best parts of you.

But sitting on that train, I realized something: I don’t want to become someone I don’t recognize just because someone else didn’t know how to treat me.

Just because someone mishandled your honesty does not mean honesty is the problem. Just because your kindness wasn’t appreciated does not mean it was misplaced. Sometimes it simply means you offered something meaningful to someone who didn’t have the capacity to receive it.

Walking away doesn’t have to mean hardening. Setting boundaries doesn’t require becoming cold. You can leave a situation and still remain soft, intentional, and true to yourself.

I can say, truthfully: I showed up with sincerity. I tried with kindness. I did my best.

And that is something I don’t want to lose, even if it wasn’t valued in that moment.

What worries me is how often pain turns into projection. How often we carry what hurt us into new spaces and let it shape how we treat people who had nothing to do with it. That is how cycles repeat. That is how trauma spreads quietly, person to person.

What if instead, we let experiences teach us discernment, not distrust?

Boundaries, not bitterness?

Wisdom, not walls?

I don’t believe we’re meant to become the product of what we go through.

Our job isn’t to erase our softness. It’s to protect it more carefully. To choose who deserves access to it. To walk away when necessary without letting the experience rewrite our character.

And that is the choice I keep coming back to, even now:

to heal without hardening,
to leave without losing myself,
and to remain who I am even when it would be easier not to.

If you’re reading this and recognizing yourself in it, I hope you know this: you don’t need to become harder to become stronger.

You don’t need to erase your tenderness to prove you’ve learned something. The fact that you still care, even after being hurt, isn’t a weakness. It’s evidence of depth. Of courage. Of a heart that chose growth over bitterness.

It’s okay if you’re still figuring out how to protect yourself without closing off. That balance takes time. It’s something you learn slowly, often imperfectly. But as long as you’re choosing to leave spaces that diminish you without letting them change who you are, you’re doing more than you realize.

So take this with you: you are allowed to walk away with your kindness intact.

You are allowed to heal without becoming unrecognizable.

And you are allowed to remain soft in a world that keeps asking you to harden.

That choice, to stay true to yourself, is its own quiet kind of strength.

It shows up after a breakup, after a disappointing situationship, after a man breathes the wrong way in the general direction of a woman who’s already had a long day.

And lately, I’ve been thinking about it.

There’s something strangely comforting about how quickly we hop onto the I Hate Men Express, especially when we’ve been hurt. One minute a woman is glowing, bragging about how she’s finally being loved the way she deserves. The next, she’s adding herself to the men deserve nothing choir like her heart wasn’t floating five minutes ago.

But here’s the thing: I don’t think anyone actually hates men.
I think we hate the parts of ourselves that believed too quickly, trusted too deeply, or hoped too loudly.

Pain makes us dramatic.

When you’re betrayed, disappointed, or blindsided, you reach for the biggest language you have.
“I hate men” isn’t a philosophy. It’s emotional instinct.
It’s the slam of a door you don’t actually want to lock.

And then there’s the joke version, the meme-able, brunch-friendly, group chat-certified “men ain’t shit.” It’s practically a modern love language among women. A shorthand for:

• I’m tired.

• I’m overwhelmed.

• My heart is bruised, and I’d like a refund.

Hyperbole becomes a coping mechanism. A way to laugh instead of crumble.

But sometimes the joke becomes armor.

“It’s easier to say I hate men,” I realized, “than it is to say I’m scared to trust again.”

Because if we peel back the sarcasm, the girl-power chants, the all-men-suck blanket statements, what we’re really saying is much softer:

“I didn’t expect that.”
“I can’t believe that hurt me this much.”
“I wanted this to be different.”

It’s a lot easier to blame an entire gender than confront our own vulnerability.

And still… I can’t lie, the extreme statements throw me off sometimes.

There’s something dizzying about watching someone go from gushing about their boyfriend to joining the I Hate Men Olympics after a single stumble. But maybe that contradiction is what makes us human: we swing between hope and hurt like it’s a sport.

We don’t actually hate men.
We hate disappointment.
We hate the bruise on our ego.
We hate the version of ourselves that feels foolish for believing.

So maybe “I hate men” isn’t hate at all.

Maybe it’s heartbreak with eyeliner.
Maybe it’s fear with lip gloss.
Maybe it’s softness wearing a fake leather jacket trying to act tough.

Whenever a woman says “I hate men,” what she really means is:

“See me.”
“Hear me.”
“Tell me I deserved better than what happened.”

Maybe we’re not declaring a war.
Maybe we’re just asking for someone, anyone, to understand the ache beneath the punchline.

Maybe we don’t hate men at all. Maybe we just hate the way hope makes fools of us, again and again.

No one at the event had a face.

I remember the bodies, laughter without mouths, voices without names. The kind of gathering that feels crowded but lonely at the same time. When I left, I didn't say goodbye to anyone because there was no one to say it to.

I called an uber.

The first one canceled. 
The second one took long enough that I saved my phone battery and stared at the street like something might step out of it.

Then it arrived too fast.

A Tesla, already idling at the curb, like it had been waiting.

The driver told me the back doors didn't work. 

I hesitated. Just enough to notice how normal he sounded, then got in the front. Everything felt fine at first. Clean. Quiet. Too Quiet.

He started sneezing.

Not real sneezes. The kind where the sound comes out but nothing else moves. Each time, his head leaned closer to mine. I asked if he was okay.

"I'm fine," he said.

His hand brushed my leg.

I told him to stop.

Thats when the dream let go of me.

I don’t remember leaving my body.

There’s no moment where I step out of myself or float upward or realize I’m no longer driving the story forward. I’m just…not there anymore.

The seat is still warm where I was. The dashboard still glows. The driver’s hands are still on the wheel.

But I am not longer the one beside him.

The girl in the passenger seat is white. Thats the first thing I notice, not because it matters, but because it feels intentional, like the dream made a substitution and wants me to see it. She’s around my age. Same posture. Same guarded stillness people when they don’t want to seem rude but don’t feel safe.

She doesn’t know me. She doesn’t know I’m here.

I’m in the backseat now, except I dont have a body. I’m something unbuckled. An extra presence the car didn’t account for. If I leaned forward and screamed, nothing would happen. If I reached out, my hand would pass through skin like fog.

The driver sneezes again.

Fake. Too neat.

She glances at him, then out the window, then at the clock on her phone. i can see her doing the math. Minutes left. Distance shrinking. She tells herself she’s overreacting. She tells herself this is almost over.

The Tesla screen glows between them.

At first it’s just the map, smooth blue lines, the car icon sliding forward. Then they pass another vehicle, and music floods the car. Not the radio. Not bluetooth. A song that clearly belongs to someone else.

It fades as quickly as it arrived.

The girl stiffens. She looks at the screen. Then out the window. Then back at the screen.

Another car passes.

Another song. Different this time. Louder. Too intimate. Like someone else’s headphone leaking directly into her chest.

“What is that?” she asks.

The driver shrugs “Tesla thing”

I know he’s lying. I know because the dream wants me to know.

Cars slide past them and each ones leaves behind a ghost of sound. Bass, vocals, laughter, static. It’s overwhelming and fascinating and wrong. The girl forgets to be afraid for a moment because her brain is trying to understand the impossible.

That's when his hand moves again.

It’s quick. Almost polite. A graze more than a grab. Enough to make her doubt herself.

She looks at him. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” he says immediately, eyes still on the road.

And just like that, the music stops.

Silence fills the car like pressure.

He doesn’t touch her again right away. That’s the worst part. He behaves. He drives. He lets time pass. He lets her think maybe she imagined it, maybe the world is just strange sometimes and not dangerous.

She starts counting down the minutes again.

I want to tell her to run. I want to tell her it doesn’t matter how close home is.

But I am only a witness now. An unlocked character drifting in a story that no longer needs me to survive.

The highway stretches ahead of them, dark and endless.

And his hand is already moving.

The highways hums beneath them, steady and hypnotic.

The kind of sound that makes you believe nothing bad can happen because everything is moving the way it’s supposed to.

The girl relaxes just a fraction. Not enough to be comfortable, just enough to survive the next few minutes.

Cars pass.

Music bleeds in again.

She identified the sogn instantly. “Ivy” by Frank Ocean. Those soft, nostalgic chords spilling into the car like someone else’s memory. The opening lines float between them, delicate and warm in a way that doesn’t belong here. It feels too intimate, too close, like overhearing a confession through a wall that shouldn’t be thin enough to allow it.

She watches the Tesla screen closely now, tracking each little car icon as it slips by, predicting the sound before it arrives.

I realize the rule before she does.

Every car leaves something behind.

No consent. No warning. Just presence.

The drivers hand rests on his thigh. Still. Patient. Like he’s learned the timing of this world better than she has.

“Almost there,” he says casually.

She nods. Doesn’t answer. Her body is angled slightly toward the door now, purse tight in her lap, keys threaded between her fingers without her consciously deciding to do it.

The screen shows a red light ahead.

That’s when he touches her again.

This time it’s not a graze. It’s deliberate. Confident. Like he’s correcting a mistake.

She freezes for half a second. Just long enough for her body to decide something her mind hasn’t caught up to yet.

The car slows.

The light turns red.

She opens the door.

The air hits her like permission.

She doesn’t scream. She doesn’t look back. She moves the way animals do when they know hesitation is fatal. One foot on the pavement, then the other, then she’s running.

The car horn blares. Someone yells. The light changes.

I’m with her now. Not behind, not ahead. Floating beside her, close enough to feel the panic radiating off her skin like heat.

Her lungs burn. The road bends in impossible ways. One moment she’s on the shoulder of the highway, the next she’s cutting through a side street she doesn’t remember turning onto.

There’s a bike.

There’s no explanation for it. It’s just there, waiting, like the dream has decided running isn’t fast enough anymore.

She gets on.

She pedals harder than should be possible. The ground blurs. Streetlights stretch into lines. I keep pace effortlessly, weightless, watching her legs pump, watching her refuse to stop.

For a moment. Just a moment. It feels like freedom.

Like she got away.

I think of The Lovely Bones, how the dead hover near the living, helpless but close, tethered by unfinished fear.

I wonder if this is what I am now.

Then the scene collapses.

I’m in my bed.

There’s no transition. No arrival. Just sheets, ceiling, the familiar dark shape of my room. My body feels heavy, like it’s been returned to me without instructions.

I don’t know how I got home.

I don’t know if I ever did.

My phone rings.

Xavier calls me, and his voice is already wrong. Tense in a way that tells me he’s choosing which parts to say out loud. He says some guy called him, asking if he’s seen a girl who he had picked up that night. Saying he’s looking for her. Saying he’s not going to stop until he finds her.

And I just know it’s me.

I don’t know how I know. I just do. Even though I ended up swallowed by the shadows of the dream, even though I drifted out of my own body, even though I wasn’t the girl in the seat anymore, my presence was still there. Stuck to the moment like residue. Maybe he saw me the whole time. Maybe I was never as invisible as I thought.

I hang up before Xavier can say anything else. My stomach is already dropping, like the floor has unhooked itself from the rest of the house. I tell my people, “He’s coming for me,” and the words leave my mouth too easily. Like they were waiting at the back of my throat, rehearsed by some part of me that was already afraid.

I lock the doors.

Not just one. All of them. I check the windows. The latches. The sliding glass. I make sure nothing is cracked or loose or open enough for a breath to slip through. I move through the house like someone who doesn’t trust the walls anymore. Like everything familiar has turned fragile.

I keep trying to come up with a plan, something that will make me safer, something that will make the fear logical instead of living. But every idea falls apart as soon as I think it. Nothing feels like protection. Nothing feels like enough.

It’s like the danger isn’t outside the door at all.

It’s like it already followed me home.

Lately I’ve been thinking about how long trust is allowed to take. When does hesitation turn into distance? When does self-protection slide into isolation? There are no clear answers, only small moments where I choose whether to open the door a little more or keep it exactly where it is.

This piece grew out of watching myself move through those questions, especially with people who revealed themselves to be less trustworthy than I once hoped. It’s what I’ve learned or am still learning about trust, memory, and the slow work of rebuilding what was broken.

Trust is often spoken about as if it’s a gift. Something freely given, something pure. But in practice, trust is closer to a negotiation between memory and hope. We want to believe people as they are now, yet we cannot unknow what they once showed us.

To trust someone is not to forget what they’re capable of. It is to decide whether what they’ve shown you since matters more than what came before. That decision is never simple. Memory doesn’t disappear just because forgiveness enters the room. Forgiveness softens the sharpness of the past, but memory keeps the shape. Quiet and watchful.

There is a strange pressure placed on trust, as if withholding it is a moral failure. But trust is not owed. It is built. Slowly, unevenly, through repetition. Words ask for trust but behavior earns it. Consistency becomes a language of its own, spoken over time rather than in moments of apology or promise.

The hardest part is the in-between: when someone is no longer hurting you, but you are not yet safe. This is where doubt lives. Not as cruelty, but as self-preservation. To hesitate is not to punish, it is to observe. It is to wait for reality to reveal itself without forcing belief.

Cutting someone out is often framed as unforgiving, but sometimes it is simply an acknowledgment of limits. Not every relationship is meant to survive its own history. Distance can be an act of clarity rather than anger. A recognition that peace should not require constant vigilance.

Yet full trust, when it comes, is not blindness. It isn’t the absence of fear, but the decision that fear no longer needs to lead. Trust doesn’t erase the past; it integrates it. The past becomes information rather than a sentence.

Being a “forgive but never forget” person is often misunderstood. Forgetting is easy. Remembering responsibly is harder. Memory can become a weapon or a compass. One keeps us trapped, the other keeps us oriented. The difference lies in intention: are we remembering to stay wounded, or remembering to stay whole?

An even playing field isn’t created by pretending nothing happened. It’s created when both people are honest about what did happen and willing to meet in the present without denying the past. Trust cannot be rushed into fairness, it has to arrive there on its own.

In the end, trust is not about certainty. It is about choice. A choice to open the door a little wider, or to leave it closed without shame. A choice to believe patterns over promises. A choice to protect your heart without hardening it.

Sometimes she even caught herself laughing, not because anything was funny, but because the swings in her emotions felt absurd. One moment she was composed; the next she was crying in a way she barely recognized. It was strange to observe herself from the outside, to witness her own reactions and think, This isn’t me. When did I become like this? She’d stare at her reflection, searching her eyes as if they were windows into a version of herself she no longer understood. It all felt unfamiliar, as if she’d been cast into a role she’d never agreed to play. None of it felt like the person she used to be.

And yet, the emotions were real. Overwhelmingly real. She wondered how someone could have shifted her inner world so profoundly, and how she had allowed it. Questions spun in her mind endlessly: some rational, some emotional, all of them tangled in ways she couldn’t unwind.

Her friends worried about her. She saw it in their faces before they even spoke. They offered advice she already knew, reminders she had already told herself. She understood every reason, every warning, every concern. She wasn’t oblivious, not even close. She saw the situation clearly, maybe more clearly than anyone else. But clarity didn’t stop the ache. It didn’t silence the part of her still reaching for possibility. Her heart simply refused to cooperate with logic.

What troubled her most was the split inside her: the part that knew this wasn’t right, and the part that couldn’t let go of the what if.

What if everything they’d been through was leading somewhere better? What if this confusion was only a step before understanding? What if time might give them the chance to build something real, something lasting, something like the love she had always hoped for? What if walking away now meant losing what could have become everything?

These questions didn’t just visit her. They lived with her. They followed her through the day, sat with her at night, washed over her again and again like the tide. Pulling her back into hope, pushing her toward reality, leaving her caught somewhere between the two.

The only way she could describe it was waves.

Heartbreak moved through her in waves.

I’ve always been a fast person.
I think fast. I walk fast. I speak fast. My mind moves quickly, and sometimes my words rush to keep up. When I talk, especially about things that matter, I speed up because I’m trying to hold onto my thoughts before they disappear. Not because I’m careless. Not because I’m trying to overwhelm anyone.

Lately, though, peace has become something I’m actively chasing.
Peace is my dream.

My dream is to feel grounded. To move through life calmly and steadily, at my pace. Not rushing to meet expectations. Not slowing down to make myself smaller. I want to slow down because it feels right, not because I’ve been forced into silence.

Being born and raised in a place like New York City, speed becomes law. Everyone moves quickly, almost instinctively, and you either fall in line or get bumped. Urgency is the default. You learn it without realizing you’re learning it.

Some time ago, I met someone who moved entirely at their own pace.
They walked at their own pace.
They talked at their own pace.
No matter the environment or the pressure to speed up, they stayed steady. Watching that was quietly powerful. Admirable, unexpectedly moving. It made me realize how rare it is to witness someone so unbothered by urgency.

I want a calm mind.
I want to respond instead of react.
I want stability in how I approach life and relationships.

In a world where anxiety feels like a shared language, it can be hard to remember that calm exists. That conversations don’t need to feel like a race. That emotions don’t need to be rushed or shut down. I’m learning that urgency doesn’t equal importance, and speed doesn’t equal strength.

I still move quickly. That’s part of me.
But I’m learning to pause. To breathe. To choose steadiness over chaos.
I want a life that feels peaceful even when things are heavy. A life where I don’t feel pressured to perform or explain my rhythm. A life where I’m allowed to grow slowly, intentionally, and honestly.

I’m not trying to be perfect.
I’m trying to be peaceful.
And I’m learning that moving at my own pace is how I get there.

I don’t need to rush through life to prove I belong in it.

So how do I get there? I think it starts with my conversations. Staying at my calm pace without speeding up or slowing down for anyone else. Holding my steadiness even when emotions run high or the words coming at me feel overwhelming. That’s something I want to get better at.

Sometimes I feel myself rushing trying to get everything out at once, trying to explain myself quickly if I feel misunderstood. I’m learning that slowing down, taking my time, and even allowing myself to be misunderstood temporarily is a powerful first step.

And I’m practicing this outside of conversations too. I’ve stopped rushing my mornings. I give myself enough time to get ready. I listen to music. I enjoy being at home before stepping into an already hectic world. That small shift has changed everything. It’s helped me feel more at ease, more present.

I’m learning this truth slowly and intentionally:
You don’t arrive at peace by eliminating chaos.
You arrive by refusing to let chaos set your tempo.

Lately I’ve been learning something about myself that I never expected to confront so clearly: what it feels like to be emotionally hungry.

Not hungry for grand gestures or dramatic declarations. Just hungry for warmth, softness, reassurance, presence. The small things that help me feel connected, grounded, seen.

I didn’t know how deeply I felt it until I started noticing how empty it can feel when those needs stay unspoken or unmet. When the emotional language I speak isn’t always the one being spoken back.

And it isn’t anyone’s fault, or anyone’s failure.

Some of us express outwardly because it’s how we breathe. Some of us hold everything inwardly because it’s how we stay safe.

I have been learning what it means to love someone who feels inwards. Someone who can carry entire oceans of emotion without ever letting the surface ripple.

There is beauty in that quiet depth. A steadiness, a sincerity that doesn’t need to perform.

I want to love that.
I genuinely do.

But loving something is not just about wanting. It’s also about being able.

And sometimes, even when two people care, even when there is softness in the spaces between, it becomes painfully clear that one person cannot love in the way the other needs. 
Not because they don’t care, but because they cannot yet trust enough to open in the ways love requires.

I can feel that.
I can respect it.
I can sit with it.

But I can’t pretend it doesn’t affect me.

Because trust is its own kind of nourishment, and when it is thin, everything else gets harder.

I have my own trust wounds, my own walls, my own pauses. But theirs loom larger, heavier, quieter, more absolute.

It shapes the connection more than either of us wants it to.

So I find myself reaching, gently, for little signs: a word, a warmth, a shared breath of emotion.

And when those signs remain buried under fear or self-protection, it leaves me feeling lonely even while caring deeply.

It’s strange how quickly that loneliness turns inward. How easy it is to convince myself I’m asking for too much, that wanting comfort is a flaw, that needing a drop is somehow demanding a river.

But hunger isn’t greed.

Hunger is just the heart speaking its needs.

So I’ve been learning to sit with that without turning it into blame. not toward myself and not toward anyone else.

Because loving an inward person isn’t about forcing them to speak a language they never learned. It isn’t about demanding a vulnerability they don’t yet feel safe carrying.

It’s about understanding that:
trust can be uneven.
love can be present but blocked.
care can exist even when expression cannot.
And wanting to love someone does not always guarantee being able to receive love in return.

And it’s also about learning to honor my own experience in that imbalance.
Ignoring hunger doesn’t make it disappear, it only makes it ache.

So I’m practicing something new:
to name what I feel
without turning it into accusation,
to ask for nourishment
without feeling guilty for existing,
to love deeply
without losing myself in the process.

I don’t have all the answers yet.

I only know this:
feeling deeply is part of who I am.
wanting softness is part of who I am.
wanting to feel trusted and seen is part of who I am.

And now I’m learning my emotional shape
where my boundaries can soften, and where they need to stand steady.
I’m learning the difference between patience and self-abandonment,
between understanding someone’s quiet
and starving quietly beside them.

And maybe this is what growth really is:
not choosing between love and myself,
but learning how to hold both
without slipping out of my own hands.

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listen. i know im usually here being a hopeless romantic, writing about yearning, softness, all my lover-girl emotions on display like the hall of fame. but today? im stepping out of that version of me, because something happened recently that shook me to my core.

and i need to know if the girls feel me on this one.

so picture this: i'm in the bathroom, mid-slick-back routine. you know the vibe. gel, water, 3 scrunchies around my wrist ready to go, and my double-sided hard bristle brush doing what it was literally born to do. i'm laid. snatched. sculpted. borderline face lift.

then my as of today EX-situationship (overly complicated, don't ask) walks in. he looks at my brush like it personally offended him.

it went something like this.
"wtf...why does your brush look like that?"

im confused. im like what do you mean why?
he goes "when was the last time you cleaned this? this is dirty. i'm throwing it out."

my brush wasn’t dirty.
she was activated.

and that's when i realized: men truly don't know anything.

because here's the thing. the brush is not supposed to be clean.
the brush is supposed to have character. gel buildup. dried edge control. a little residue of past battles. that's what makes the bristles harder and stiffer. that what lays the hair DOWN. that's what creates the iconic slick-back. the little bit of lint she had in her? the random strands of hair? they gave her some razzle dazzle, added texture, personality, and i loved that about her.

but he doesn't get it. he hears "seasoned" and thinks "unsanitary."
so he tosses it. straight into the trash like that wasn't my day-one.

okay well yes he did buy me a new one.
and that was sweet or whatever.
but the damage? irreversible.

because let me tell you something:
breaking in a new hard-bristle brush is treacherous.

my old brush? she was reliable. efficient. a real one.
she would've had my hair slicked in 2.5 seconds with minimal effort.
the new brush? too soft. too innocent. too...fresh. it doesn't know the mission yet. it hasn't lived. it hasn't been through the gel trenches.

i actually missed my old brush. i stared at the trash can for a little too long after he left out. am i really above digging her out? honestly, jurys still out.

because there are certain things only women understand.
we know the truth:

a seasoned slick-back brush goes multi platinum (this one's for you, nina) once it hits its prime.
not gold, not diamond but multi-platinum.

meanwhile this man thinks he did me a favor. 

so yeah... im officially gatekeeping my "dirty" brush from men for the rest of my life. 

they can’t appreciate greatness, and i refuse to let another legend fall.