Talk to me about love

Humor me

Drown in the rose-colored world of passion and intensity

Talk to me about butterflies

Sleepless nights

Nervous laughs

About all the things you get (not give)

About all the ways you thrive

Talk to me about touching thighs

Sweaty palms

Eye contact worthy of gods

You chant the word soulmates

You worship destiny

You spread your arms and take with greed

You say that's all you need

And yet, when the storm hits

When the song catches in your throat

When your sun gets swallowed by the dark

Do you stay to ease the fall?

Do you pray?

Do you hold?

And when there's nothing more to get

And your arms no longer spread

Even the butterflies are dead

And life feels more like a curse than fate

Do you bear the weight?

So talk to me about love

I dare you

I came to realize that emotions are meant to be felt in the body... By the laws of physics, the built-up energy has to be discharged somewhere, whether it’s shaking, moving, crying, screaming.

Our bodies know exactly what to do.

Sounds obvious, right? Almost primitive. Almost silly. However, for an over-analyzing madman like me, it can be truly terrifying.

I always used that built-up energy to make art.

To think that I might lose the very force that used to inspire me to pick up a pen and turn a stream of tangled thoughts into an authentic reflection of my bleeding world.

It’s scary…

You might be wondering what I’ve been doing with my emotions all this time. Trust me, I was trying to process them in many different ways. Ways that required enormous mental effort. I picked apart every single feeling I experienced to make it stop. A hopeless attempt to maintain control and perspective.

As you can imagine, it wasn’t particularly successful. It might have looked noble. It might have looked mature. But that doesn’t mean it worked. What I thought was awareness quickly became avoidance.

The tension was always present. The scars didn’t even get a chance to heal. I forgot to let my body do its thing. I tried to outsmart it and force it to work on my terms.

And boy, have I been humbled!

What I’m slowly learning is that emotions were never meant to be dissected the moment they arose. They were simply meant to be experienced, not solved. And the anxious investigation? Just a desperate attempt to maintain composure. A false sense of resolution.

When I look back at my childhood, I notice that I was never taught how to sit with discomfort. I was never shown how to let it move through me in a healthy way… Or any way, really. I was taught to keep it in. Behave. Don’t make a scene.

It’s almost as if having feelings was an error that needed to be corrected.

What a preposterous thing to believe.

Lucky for me, I always had art to lean on. Clueless as I was, I still managed to help myself release the energy, at least to some extent.

Looking back, art wasn’t merely creativity. It was one of the few ways I knew how to metabolize difficult emotions.

And now?

The first thing that crossed my mind was this:

What if there’s nothing left to say?

What if all the pain I kept trapped in my body was the only source I’ve ever truly written from?

And if I learn how to release it, how to carry it differently, what if there’s nothing left for me to write about?

I guess we’ll have to find out.

Zach Webb - Close to you

Life is a lonely journey, especially for those who are aware of their own loneliness. I have realized that pain is an integral part of my life. It rarely stops; in fact, it never truly does. The moments when I don’t feel it are merely moments of numbness. As soon as I refuse to be numb, it’s there… present, bitter, sometimes subtle, sometimes heavy… sinking into my gut like a clod of wet clay. Disappointment and loneliness.

An endless loneliness.

As far back as I can remember, one feeling has constantly repeated itself within me. I know how it begins, I know how it unfolds, I know how it consumes me, I know how I suffocate in it. My whole life, I have felt alone. Alone with my thoughts, my emotions, my reality.

I remember telling my therapist during our very first session: “No one is coming to save you. Even if they love you. And that is the bitterest pill for me to swallow. Not parents, not a husband, not friends. No one is coming. It’s just you.” He leaned forward in his chair, looked at me with compassion in his eyes, and agreed.

I’ve sensed it for a long time, and I want to say it as it is.

Saving is an illusion.

No one is coming.

Not into the depths I reach for within myself, nor into the pain and wounds of childhood and adolescence that persistently echo at every possible opportunity.

No one is coming.

Not into the stream of tears, nor into the hundred-and-first disappointment, nor into the silence I desperately try to hold together along with pieces of my dignity… because words never helped anyway.

It’s just me.

It has to be me.

I must be the one to lean down toward myself.

I am the one who must allow myself to feel all those mixed, messy, and heavy feelings.

I must stop judging myself.

I must step into that pain and give it meaning.

I must stop seeing my experience as a “glitch in the system,” as a wave of discomfort that burdens everyone around me.

I must allow myself to live and expand my lungs in all my suffocating battles.

I must meet myself with compassion in my own personal hell.

I promised I would choose myself, and I’m keeping that promise. I’ve realized that my pain belongs to me. It will be with me always and everywhere, no matter the setting.

Only I can soothe it, only I can fully acknowledge it, and only I know its true extent… every night spent crying, and every night when the tears finally ran dry; the silent staring out the window in total numbness; the endless self-doubt; the dissecting of every mistake, real or imagined.

Just earn the love… if I handle it better next time, I’ll finally be worthy of it, right?

If I choose the right words, if I perfectly calculate what to show and what to hide… then it’ll finally work, right?

If I just shut the fuck up and hurt alone… suffer in a way that doesn’t inconvenience anyone, so no one has to look at it, maybe then someone will take pity and give me a crumb of affection… right?

A never-ending, self-tormenting chain of thoughts trying to justify this cruel, breathtaking pain.

But now, I want to declare this: The fact that I feel is not my fault. It is not something I should be ashamed of or try to silence for the comfort of others.

It is not my fault.

Let it disturb others if it must. It is my sovereign right, and I will not let it be taken from me.

And to hell with the fact that no one is coming.

I’m starting to become quite a pro at holding myself in those suffocating moments, at creating space for tears, words, images… for everything that needs to come out.

There’s no saving that comes from others.

There’s just acceptance of my one and only, deep-feeling version of life.

So be it.

The most shocking observation I made while reading my old entries is that I was so disgusted by myself when I was younger. I was literally injecting hatred and contempt right into my veins. How could I ever let anyone else love me when I hated myself so deeply?

No wonder I sabotaged every good relationship I ever had. I never felt deserving of their love. I felt like they must have made a mistake. They couldn’t possibly see me clearly for who I really was if they loved me. So I pushed them away to prove my point.

And unsurprisingly, I ended up with the one person who treated me like shit.

Now I see this dynamic so clearly. It fills me with immense grief and sadness to see myself back then… punishing myself for things I couldn’t do better. I didn’t even know how. Nobody ever helped me understand myself or told me that there was nothing wrong with me.

I thought everyone felt the way I did, that everyone experienced the same intensity of emotions. And since everyone else seemed to handle it better, I assumed I was failing at life miserably while everyone else was winning… or at least surviving with dignity. And there I was, crawling through the mud, dirty as fuck, with no way out.

I wanted to crawl out of my own skin. I wanted to become somebody else. I wanted to stop feeling the way I was feeling, because it was too much. It hurt like hell and there was no one to help.

So I just tried to survive the best I could. And the best I could do was blame myself for everything that was happening… feeling like a complete failure, like someone wearing the most detailed, well-crafted mask. Under that mask of a calm, collected, funny and rational girl was a terrified little human being, genuinely afraid for her life.

It was existential.

First I was arrogant and fierce. Later I felt so small and so afraid of others seeing through my mask and uncovering the ugly truth about me…

The truth I believed about myself, the truth I reinforced with every single thought.

I was so cruel to myself…

I hurt myself first to avoid being hurt by others.

I rejected myself first to be ready for their rejection.

And I judged myself first to avoid being judged.

And I did it with such brutality.

Now, when I look at this girl being so cruel to herself, I’m amazed she survived at all. And I’m amazed by the woman she became, despite being tortured by her own mind for so many years, with such intensity.

The reality I lived in was so dark. It’s terrifying to revisit it now…

So today, I want to hold her.

The voices that tried to silence her were wrong. There is so much light and life inside of her. There is no death… only the death of old, twisted beliefs.

I want to hold her. I want to pull her out of that space where she always felt like she was running out of oxygen… a space that was suffocating her while everyone watched and didn’t give a fuck.

I want to stop time and tell her that she is fucking important.

That she matters.

That she is not the cruel depiction of herself — muddy, ugly, unworthy, and despicable.

I want to fight for her fiercely and righteously, the way no one ever fought for her. I want to tell her:

“I’m sorry you were forgotten.
I’m sorry you were left alone in this huge, heavy world that crushed you with unbearable weight.
I’m sorry no one ever showed you how to survive without destroying yourself in the process.

You deserved better.

You are a survivor.

No matter how much you try to convince yourself that your pain doesn’t matter, that others had it worse, that your hurting wasn’t sacred and that you must have somehow deserved it. No matter how much you tried to be strong, composed, and silent about how hard it really was.

It was hard.
It hurt deeply.
It was confusing, humiliating, and crushing.

And you did the best you could to survive. I’m proud of you.”

Excerpt no. 1

“I don’t want to live anymore. Not as myself.

My name seems to be cursed.

It means death, silence, and tears.

I no longer believe. I have no hope.

Everything I ever dared to dream of is gone.

If only I could be invisible, hidden from the whole world within my tears.

What am I supposed to do when I feel like my heart has been torn apart, bleeding into my entire body, and that bubbling blood is like lava… burning and scorching my insides.

There is nothing but death.”

Excerpt no. 2

“I can’t even look at myself.

I feel like a piece of shit, as if I’m smeared with mud.

I don’t want anyone to see me; I am unclean and nobody knows it.

I’ll have to smile again, be nice, and pretend that I’m like them.

But I know I’m not, I don’t belong in this world.

Gross. I am disgusted with myself.

There is no God. And I am no more, either.”

Due to a series of heavy events, I stopped writing completely. As upsetting as it sounds, for some time writing became painful and unsafe. The very anchor I had always turned to in times of distress was gone.

I sat down with my journal many times, only to catch myself a few moments later staring at the empty page. I couldn’t bring myself to write a single word, but the paper felt calming anyway… My hands running over the page as if I were caressing a space that was not yet able to hold the weight I carried in the silence.

The paper… so calm… holding the memories of snowy nights I watched silently when sleep eluded me.

I was unable to put the scenery into words as I would have loved to, just as I was unable to describe what was happening inside of me. My tired brain just retired from creating sentences about things I used to talk about for hours. I simply ran out of words.

It’s probably a good thing, in a way. Life has never been so busy and demanding, and I have never felt so humbled. Kids, household, health, anxiety, addiction, sleep deprivation, loneliness… you name it. Life has overwhelmed me with so many trials that there’s no time or energy left for creativity.

I wake up. I struggle. I do what has to be done. I get my daily dose of interrupted sleep…

And repeat…

Sounds a bit gloomy, I know, but I believe life is never just black or white and the adversity never lasts forever. I still feel grateful for the life I get to live and the resilience I’m building.

I believe one day I’ll be able to tell the stories I’ve carried these past few months. But today, I reckon there’s not much art in this kind of surviving. Although there’s undeniably a lot of humanity in it.

To anyone feeling like they are barely surviving: hang in there.

This too shall pass.

I once carried a beautiful, vivid fire inside me…

Warm, wild, and full of life.

But time wore it down.

Life pressed heavy on my chest, and slowly, the fire dimmed.

The wind nearly broke me, nearly snuffed me out.

But I survived.

And somehow, the fire was sheltered long enough, protected by gentle hands.

And in that fragile stillness, I began to remember.

Slowly, the fire gathered strength,

quietly at first, then with rising heat.

Now it burns in full force again,

no longer shaken by the breeze.

The wind no longer fights the flame,

it feeds it, carries it further.

What was once fragile is now a wildfire,

and I stand in its heart.

My eyes burn like those of a goddess who has seen time bend,

seen souls fall and rise again.

I’m no longer caught in the storm. I am the storm.

I’ve risen above.

I am as vast as the universe.

I am the universe.

I am no longer what I was.

The girl who once trembled is gone.

In her place stands something ancient, unshakable.

And my voice?

It doesn’t tremble.

It doesn’t scream.

It speaks quietly, steadily,

in the ancient tongue that moves mountains,

breaks the earth,

and splits stone.

I am the trembling ground,

the deep, ancient sound that stirs the sleepers and wakes the watchful.

They say emotional depth is a gift.
To me, it feels like a curse.
Like being the one who feels, holds, forgives,
while no one really sees me.
There’s a quiet kind of pain in always being the strong one.

I forgive. I forget. I see the good intentions.
I give second chances. Over and over.

But lately, I’ve been overwhelmed.
Carrying too much, for too long.

Alone…

Every time I want to be happy, I have to work for it.
I have to be the strong one.
I can’t afford to lose control or make mistakes.
Because when I do, I’m not met with grace, but with judgment.
Not with comfort, but with expectation.

I feel like I’m not treated the way I treat others.
No generosity. No forgiveness. No compassion.
Just more to handle. More to process. More to overcome.

Yes, I’m strong.
But God, I wish I didn’t have to be.
I wish I could let go — just for a little while.
Exhale.
Be loved a little.
In a way that calms my soul.
In a way that doesn’t ask me to earn it.

I’m tired…

Maybe I am too romantic. Too idealistic.
Maybe I want something not carved from the soil of this world.
Maybe what I crave is sacred,
something that lives only on a soul level,
where everything else fades.
Every reason, every judgment, every expectation.

Maybe it’s not meant to be.
Maybe I’m a soul that wandered the universe and ended up in this world by accident,
fallen from a different realm.

So I endure.

I walk.

I suffer.

I survive…

I always do.

The past is pressing down on me,

in my old journal, in therapy sessions, in long-silent acquaintances who are now reaching out, out of nowhere…

And yet, it doesn’t feel random.

It feels like the pulse of my grief is rippling outward, reaching hearts thousands of kilometers away.
As if it always knew I’d come to this moment.
As if it had been waiting — quietly, faithfully — until I was strong enough not only to feel it, but to carry it and tend to it tenderly.

I see myself so clearly.
My radiant soul, the one I learned to hide.
Even when people tried to get close, they couldn't reach me.
Maybe I didn’t even have the words to describe the sorrow I carried.
The grief for a life I knew I deserved.
The one I secretly hoped for.
The one that never came.

Grief for connection — deep and true.
For the freedom to show myself, to be received in full.

I see myself — struggling, hoping, aching.
Hiding my vulnerability behind anything I could find.
God… Why wasn’t there anyone who saw me back then?

That question keeps echoing — relentless, unsettling.
My mind spins, tangled in painful memories,
until a quiet force rises from within,
cutting through the noise,
and takes the shape of a voice.

My voice.

Don’t be afraid, love. I see you now. You may feel like it’s too late, but it’s not.

You’re still here, inside me. Still grieving.

For every time someone tried to own you.
For every time you were used to patch someone else’s emptiness.
For every time you weren’t seen, weren’t felt.

You grieve for all the times you disappeared,
into the depths of loneliness and sorrow,
into the dark…
To that place where your vision blurred,
where the ground cracked beneath your feet,
where anxiety sat heavy on your chest and you couldn’t breathe.
And no one cared enough to notice.
No one reached for you to help.

Grieve, girl.
With all your heart.

I'm here now.
I'm holding you.
I care.
And I will pull you from the darkness
and bathe you in warmth and sunlight.

Grieve like there is no tomorrow.
Let it all out.
Your grief is sacred to me,
a seal of your strength,
your depth,
your tenderness.

I will hold it with love,
so you can finally take a deep breath and rest.

You can’t get rid of me anymore :)
I will keep choosing you, over and over again.

This piece is deeply personal. I haven’t polished it much, I wanted to keep it real and raw, just as it poured out of me. It’s not perfect, but it’s true.

I hope that one day, my children will read this and feel held by it. That they’ll find comfort in knowing their mother loved them fiercely, imperfectly, and as fully as she knew how. That she saw them, trusted them, and tried, always, to be a place of safety, warmth, and truth.

We were once one.

There has never been a time in my life when I’ve been so close to another being. Carrying you inside me, feeling you grow, move, exist within me for nine months is as deeply intimate as a connection with another human being can be.

And even now, when I look into your eyes, I feel that closeness.

That comfort.

And when I’m away, even for a few short hours, coming back feels like it’s been years since I saw you smiling and running toward me with open arms.

Seeing your glowing eyes full of trust, love, and recognition fills me with a joy that nothing else can match.

You both came to me on my birthday, three years apart.

As unbelievable as it sounds, it wasn’t planned, yet somehow, it feels as if heaven was trying to whisper:

This is for you.

A love to carry you through your life,

a love to fill your heart forever,

a love that pulses through your veins and never stops.

You trust me, entirely, instinctively. And I feel so deeply honored.

I never want to betray that trust.

I never want to use your vulnerability against you.

And if one day I’m no longer here to say these things out loud, I want you to carry this with you:

With all my heart, I wish for your life to be full of love, purpose, and laughter.

That you’ll be surrounded by beautiful people: a partner who loves you deeply, friends who see you truly, and a community that values who you are.

I hope you’ll meet challenges with courage, and that you’ll come through them stronger and wiser.

I hope your days will be filled with joy, light, and freedom.

I don’t want you to be happy in the shallow, pressured sense of the word.

I want you to be whole.

Rooted in yourself, anchored in the truth of your own being.

Free to express who you are.

To feel deeply, to speak honestly, to live in alignment with your heart

and never shrink yourself to fit anyone’s idea of who you should be.

Not even mine.

And most of all, I hope you know you are loved.

Not for what you do, but for who you are.

You are loved in a way words can never quite hold.

And may that love overflow from you like a spring of living water,

so full that it touches everyone you meet.

For F

Watching you grow into yourself is one of the greatest honors of my life.

I love seeing how you think, how you feel, how you speak in your own way.

Your words come straight from your soul. You haven’t been silenced or shaped by the world yet,

and I hope you never let it dim that light in you.

I see you, love.

Even now, so young, you already sense the shifts in the air around you.

You’ve inherited your mama’s sensitive soul.

I see how you respond when the energy in the room shifts.

How your face changes when someone cries.

You’re not even four, and heck, you already feel it when I’m overwhelmed.

And I promise you this:

I’ll do everything I can to teach you how to protect yourself.

Not to hide, the way I had to,

but to shield yourself gently,

so the fire in you doesn’t burn out…

or burn you up.

I’ll be here.

Your guide.

Your anchor.

And I’ll show you how to stay sensitive in a world that rewards detachment.

How to give without losing yourself.

How to feel pain without letting it consume you.

How to love with your whole heart and never be ashamed of that.

God help me never to smother your flame,

but to tend to it with awe, as the rare and sacred gift it is.

I see you.

And you are free.

And your mama will protect you.

For J

You are still so little, and yet already, you fill the room with your presence.

Your eyes, your laughter, your wholehearted devotion bring me a joy unlike anything I’ve known.

Already, you radiate your daddy’s energy — calm, laid-back, content.

And just like I love that in him, I love it in you.

Being near you is like taking a deep breath of peace.

I wonder who you’ll become.

What you’ll love. What will light up your eyes.

I can’t wait to walk beside you and discover the worlds inside you.

Whatever life brings, I’ll be here.

Listening.

Loving.

Honoring who you are, not who I imagine you to be.

You are my life’s most sacred gifts.

We were once one.

And though you’ll grow into your own fullness,

some part of me will always live in you.

And some part of you will always be home in me.

It’s not my usual kind of writing, but it’s a small tribute to presence, to those brief moments full of life, to the little things that make life feel worth living.

Lately, I’ve been thinking that when you’re truly present, everything can feel like inspiration.

I offer this to anyone who moves through the world with open eyes and open hearts, receiving life in all its colors.

This morning, I went swimming. Early, outdoors, at a time when people don’t usually venture out unless they have to.

There was almost no one there. I felt as if the whole world belonged to me,

as if I could inhale it in one breath,

hold it all within me,

embrace it with outstretched arms.

The early sun was tirelessly breaking through soft, light clouds,

striking the surface of the large pool and shattering deep within it.

The water was a kaleidoscope, like an old Windows Media Player,

mesmerizing and alive.

I let myself be guided in this trance-like state.

My conscious brain forgot what to do.

My limbs moved on their own,

just like when you're driving and your hands and feet coordinate perfectly without a single thought.

At first, the water was cold,

its chilly arms wrapped around me in an unpleasant grip that sent shivers all over my body.

But soon, my body adjusted.

It attuned itself to the temperature with surprising ease, and together we began to resonate, to move in unison.

My entire field of vision was filled with water,

with dancing patterns of light breaking on the rippling surface and underneath it.

Depth and vast open spaces have always scared me.

Often, I couldn’t bring myself to swim more than a few meters in the sea.

I don’t know why, but cold water always seems darker and deeper than warm water.

But today, in this pool flooded with sunlight and playful shapes beneath the surface, I couldn't look away.

And the vastness felt breathtaking,

carrying me into completely different realms.

I don't know how to meditate, but today's experience felt like something close to it.

A deep flow,

an emptied mind,

and a strange kind of connection, through disconnection,

with myself,

the water,

and this very moment.

The more I write, the clearer one tension becomes: every sentence is a gamble between staying true and being heard.

I believe we all want to leave a mark — to inspire, spark reflection, or evoke emotion. The truth is, we want someone to see themselves in our words. Otherwise, we’d just be writing quietly at home, tucking pages into a drawer… not here.

We want to touch people, their minds, hearts, and souls.

The question is: how much are we willing to shape ourselves according to what the reader expects of us?

How much stronger is our desire to resonate than our need to be ourselves?

Being ourselves can mean being messy — too metaphorical, too vulnerable, inconsistent.

I struggle with wanting to be authentic, truly… but do I want it at the cost of being misunderstood?

At the cost of people scrolling past because it’s too dense to grasp at first glance?

At the cost of my thoughts, no matter how noble or interesting, not moving anyone because they’re too hard to process?

On the other hand, someone might say content matters more than form. After all, that’s the point, isn’t it? Sharing ideas. And honestly, that makes sense.

And yet, it doesn’t.

We’re not only writers, we’re artists, too.

Form is part of our content.

Form is also the way we express ourselves, the way we try to reach others.

We care about the structure, the style, the emotion our words evoke in others — it’s not just about the message.

Or maybe… it is all about the message.

Even our style,

our pauses,

our metaphors,

our emphasis,

that’s all part of the message too.

So here I am, on the edge of this dilemma, wanting to be heard and wanting to be myself. Balancing between the two, unable to choose.

But maybe it’s not about choosing.

Maybe there is a middle way.

Maybe what’s left for us is to write from the very core of our humanity. To trust that what is most human in us will find its echo.

Because in the end, we’re all human, and our experience of this world is always, in some way, shared…

And through that shared experience, we find connection.

That I was expressing myself authentically, that I wasn’t pretending.

Only recently did I realize how far from the truth I was.

Turns out, more than being authentic, I was a finely tuned chameleon.

In groups where humor reigned, I joked my heart out.

Among Christian friends, I was careful and proper.

With my family, I played the daughter and sister they knew – the one they had labeled: the fiery one, the sharp one, the critical and uncompromising one.

At work, I was the insightful one, the efficient one, light with humor and always ready for a quick coffee run.

All of them only saw fragments of me.

And when I tried to loosen the leash on other parts of myself, I was seen as weird.

If I got serious around the jokers, they said I wasn’t fun. If I was wild and spontaneous among Christians, they got uncomfortable and judged me.

Are we all just performing our little plays depending on who’s in the audience? I guess I got used to the fact that in this world, you dance to the tune that’s playing.

I wonder how many of us live like this. Wearing masks so well we forget they’re masks. Moving between roles so seamlessly we mistake it for identity. Dancing to the music without asking if we like the tune.

Lately, something’s changed. A desire to show myself has started to grow in me. It rose up from within like a spring of living water that can’t be stopped. It reached out its fresh hand and invited me into authenticity.

I used to swing between two extremes: From I don’t care what anyone thinks to quiet submission and a deep need to blend in and not stand out.

There was no space in between.

Only defiance or resignation.

Rebellion or surrender.

Now I want the courage to be myself, fully, no matter the setting, no matter who’s in the room.

To care with all my heart…

Or not.

To stop performing all the roles I’ve played throughout my life.

To be completely free – not black, not white, but shining in every color of the spectrum.

Just as I am.

She sat down and started folding it, mostly because the mess irritated her, not because she was trying to help me. She began folding the underwear.

“You don’t need to do that,” I said, stopping her. “I just throw it all into one drawer anyway,” I added casually.

I watched her struggle with her own disapproval. After a moment, she managed to say, half-joking, half-serious:

“Did I teach you nothing? You can’t live like that.”

God, the arrogance was radiating off her. I saw how she tried to mask her superiority with a light tone. But she couldn’t fool me, my inner compass was always too sensitive. I caught the disappointment in her voice, the judgment in her eyes.

I didn’t say it out loud, but in my mind, I answered her.

No, Mom.

You did teach me a lot. Your words only confirmed what I already knew: your lessons were painful, but they worked.

You taught me what I don’t want in life.

To be a slave to appearances. To choose the illusion of order over connection with the ones I love.

Order was your way of clinging to control. It was a rigid mask for your inability to accept mistakes.

Yours or anyone else’s.

To face your own imperfections without crumbling. Through order, you tried to prove you were good enough. That you were doing things the “right” way. It seems so trivial, but it showed me just how trapped you are inside yourself.

I watched you folding that underwear, knowing full well I’d toss it into the drawer the moment you left. You couldn’t not fold it, even though you knew it meant nothing to me.

I could see how much my nonconformity disturbed you, how much more it meant to you than just a drawer full of unfolded underwear.

And it made me wonder:

what did you really see in that small, simple act?

Do you feel like you failed?

Like you were a bad mother?

Like you didn’t prepare us for life?

Were we, your children, just your way of grading your own existence?

You always act so unbothered when we talk about pain, when we talk about something real. Like it doesn’t apply to you. Like you don’t want to look small in front of us, don’t want to lower yourself.

You don’t see that admitting your weaknesses would make you bigger in our eyes than ever before.

Dear Mom, I see the way you look down on me, for not meeting your expectations, for not earning you that imaginary A+ that would finally let you exhale and maybe love yourself a little.

It was always about you. Not about us.

I tried so fucking hard for you to see me.

I tried so hard for you to understand me,

to cheer for me,

to support me,

to guide me,

to have a relationship with me.

But you never really saw me.

It’s like your gaze was always clouded by your own pain, your own battles you were too lost in to fight.

I tried so hard, but it never worked.

You were so lost, and we just got lost with you.

But I’m finding myself, Mom.

I’m coming home.

A home you never created. A home beyond dependency on others. A home that’s always present inside me, steady and unchanging, like a never-ending tide crashing waves against the rocks.

I’m home, Mom. I wish you could be proud.

I imagine a world where you come to me smiling, arms wide open, ready to protect me, ready to hide me in your hug, ready to lift me up.

A world where you are whole, and able to give, not only desperately take.

I imagine a world where you are the home.

It’s not real.

But it’s enough for me.

Dear Mom, I wish you the freedom not to fold your underwear.

I really do.

Sometimes it feels like all the work we do, the boundaries we fight to keep, the self-control we practice, the inner child we try to heal, is just another way to escape our own feeling of worthlessness.

Maybe if I just fix myself, I’ll finally be worthy of love. Of attention. Of help, validation, and admiration. Maybe if I just get there… to that promised land of balance and maturity.

Maybe then I’ll be worthy…

But I think we’ve forgotten something important: the point of self-development was never to turn ourselves into someone finally worthy of good things. In fact, it’s the other way around. When we grow love for ourselves, real compassion and acceptance for all the messy and imperfect parts, only then do we start to realize that we were always worthy, that we were always deserving.

That we’ve always simply been human.

The aim is not to attain perfection, but to understand that our worth and wholeness were never dependent on it in the first place.

And this part, the acceptance, is the hardest.

And I don’t mean the polished, practiced smile trying to convince the world we’ve got it all figured out. I mean real, deep acceptance. Acceptance of our fallibility. Of our smallness. Of our unmet desires that make us selfishly crave love and attention.

I’m talking about making peace with our past. With the versions of us that didn’t know better. The ones who acted out of fear. Who made choices we now regret. The ones shaped by pain and pride and the desperate need to survive.

For a long time, I thought I was the worst of them all. That others didn’t mess up — or at least not as shamefully, not as terribly as I did. That others didn’t fail expectations, didn’t break their promises, didn’t lose control.

But here’s a secret:

We’re all messing up.

We’re messing up hard.

We’re messing up in ways we never thought we were capable of.

We cringe. We can’t believe ourselves. We feel ashamed. We replay it all in our heads a thousand times.

Accepting ourselves in that light, now that is the real challenge.

Having flaws is perhaps the most common aspect of being human — and yet we show so little understanding for ourselves and for each other.

Our mistakes could bring us closer to one another than any illusion of perfection ever could.

Perfection separates us. It creates a black-and-white world of them and me. It’s a rotting lie. One that poisons both the person who buys into it and the one who spreads it.

For the one who spreads it, it becomes a prison, a too-fast rhythm that forces you to keep dancing even when you’re already drained, putting on a fake smile and pretending you’re having the time of your life. Like a clown act.

For the one who believes it, it’s a crushing weight pressing you into the ground, whispering in that slippery, invasive voice: You’re a loser. Everyone else is doing better. They’re winning while you’re crawling through the mud.

I’ve heard that voice.
I’ve felt that weight.
I’ve crawled through that mud.
But now, I finally see it for what it is.

Flawlessness is just an illusion.

A poisoned apple wrapped in pretty packaging with a bow on top.

Sometimes when I close my eyes I see my mother. I see her walking away in tears after yet another argument with my father, arguments where we, the children, were the referees, the mediators, the emotional adults trying to rescue something we didn’t even understand.

Our home was like a battlefield. A constant fight for self-worth, hers and his. And in all that chaos, the children were somehow overlooked. After all, children don’t need much, they said. Food, clothes, a backpack, and some notebooks for school. No one seemed to notice that, each morning, they also tucked in silence, fear, confusion, and a quiet sense of not being enough.

I see my mother, torn apart and emotionally drained. Her face, her words, they are imprinted inside me like ink pressed into paper.

‘I’m just a pathetic wretch to you all’

she used to say in that emotionally manipulative tone that weighs so heavily on the hearts of innocent children. And she truly believed it. That we were all there, first and foremost, to hurt her, to judge her, to make her life harder on purpose.

My mother never stopped assigning intentions to others. She never rose above her own beliefs about the world and the people in it, beliefs that hurt her over and over again.

And yet, before she was my mother, she too was a broken child, frightened, unseen, unloved in ways I will never fully know. She carried that pain into her womanhood and wore it like armor sharp enough to wound everyone who came close.

By the time I tried to have an honest, assertive conversation with her, we were both adults, at least in age. But her reaction was exactly the same as it had been twenty years earlier. Her face flushed, her breathing became shallow, her eyes swelled with tears. She spiraled into an emotional outburst, casting herself once again as the tragic heroine.

I stood there, stunned.

Part of me slipped back into old reflexes, trying to mediate, soothe, rescue.

But a more mature part of me watched with detachment and sorrow. It felt as though I were the parent and she was the child, drowning in her emotions, unable to separate perception from reality, unable to trust others and their true intentions.

I lived in this toxic home for eighteen years.

Her voice became my inner voice, broken, shaming, relentless. It told me that to feel deeply was weakness and to suffer openly was pathetic.

Just a pathetic wretch.

Her words echoed in my mind. Who could love someone like that, someone falling apart in front of your eyes. It’s pathetic, isn’t it?

I pity my mother. She went through a great deal. But much of her suffering she caused herself. She built walls so thick that no ray of truth could reach her. She lived in a world, or more accurately, an idea of the world, where everyone was out to harm her, where every motive was suspect, and where she was doomed to eternal suffering in solitude.

She wore her pain like a badge of honor.

‘Look how much I’ve suffered. Look what I endure.’

The proud martyr.

I pity her. For never daring to open her eyes and see the world clearly.

For staying forever a child, too afraid to grow up.

And I pity the version of myself that stayed in her shadow for so long, living in her fears, mistaking her voice for mine.

It took me time to understand that the voice I carried wasn’t mine at all. It was a defense. A shield I didn’t know I was holding.

It told me I was too much. That love had to be earned.

Letting go of that voice felt like a betrayal. Like standing on the edge of something vast and unfamiliar, with no one to catch me.

But I left anyway.

Because I knew if I stayed, I would lose myself completely.

And even if it meant losing everything I knew, even if it meant stepping out of everything that felt safe, I chose the truth.

Me: I’m here now. You don’t have to carry everything alone anymore.

she leaned on my shoulder

K: If only you’d knew.

her gaze drifted into the distance, as if she had already lived three lifetimes. that’s how it is for those who feel deeply. the emotions are so intense, they absorb you completely. they consume you. they get exhausting

Me: Tell me then. I want to listen.

K: I always felt like an alien. I felt like the minute I stopped being convenient, I lost all the love and care. That was the betrayal of a century. I had no clue. I was just feeling, exploring, trying to make sense of it all. And I got punished for it. How is that fair? To punish one’s soul for feeling deeply, for exploring the tides and splashing waves of life. How else are you supposed to find yourself, your calling?

I was so scared of vulnerability, cuz it always meant being hurt. I don’t even know when I started to be so rational and cold. Maybe it really was a response. A defense to not get hurt.

I felt like an alien, not belonging anywhere. Not my family, not the elite, not the outsiders. Not the introverts, not the noisy ones, not the performers, not the lazy ones. I just didn’t belong.

All those groups spit me out, as if they were saying you’re not enough or you’re too much, you’re not what we’re looking for. This feeling of not belonging has been flooding me for the longest time. I could have worn my heart on my sleeve, sucked up to them, begged and still, it was never enough for them to accept me.

The dissonance was real. Maybe there really is something wrong with me…

It was so lonely. I never talked to anyone about it apart from strangers on internet who were most likely just hoping for a quick fuck.

I tried to fill that void. To prove that I am enough something… whatever that was. I wanted to prove that my mind, my heart, my soul are not a mistake. They are special, precious and beautiful. I wanted to prove that I am worth exploring, studying like a book and admiring. For as long as I can remember, I longed to be admired. I was even pulled into multiple toxic relationships because of that insatiable desire.

big sigh, her words seemed to catch in her throat, and the memories she spoke of were clearly sickening to her. she shook her head as if trying to shake off those thoughts

It was so messy, so painful…

I genuinely thought I am filling that void inside of me, but the only thing I was doing was letting someone deeper into my soul so that they could hurt me more, make a deeper cut, tear me open and let me bleed on the sidewalk. While nobody stops to help. They don’t care. They look disgusted, not compassionate. As if I was carrying some nasty disease. As if they would say: that’s your shit, deal with it.

I looked at her and saw all those layers of pain reflected in her eyes, I tried to find the right words

Me: Oh dear, I am so sorry. That is just horrible. Nobody should feel this way. You were young, feeling, beautifully and intensively alive. It’s not a shame, not a sin. There was absolutely nothing wrong with you, my dear. I hope you see that now.

K: I am slowly starting to realize that.

Me: You are so smart. Not the “wow, you are so smart” kind of way you used to hear. Your smart is different. It’s your incredible ability to be sensitive, to feel deeply, to pierce the depths of the soul and see the truth. Raw, unpolished, sometimes painfully real truth. And you act on it — not in spite of what you see, but because of it. You don’t rest and you don’t settle. Once you see the truth, your integrity won’t let you ignore it or just wave it off.

Your smart is courageous, so fucking courageous. You’re not afraid to reveal the hidden, to act upon it, to sit with the pain and let it sink, to not get blown away, to expose what others are afraid to even look at. You stand there grandiose, even if it hurts, even if it feels like breaking your bones. You don’t flinch because truth is just too important to you. How incredible is that.

K: You think?

genuine smile

Me: I’m sure. I don’t need to bullshit you. You’re special and I just realize now how much I can learn from you. How much you inspire me. How incredibly strong you are, how resilient. Even if you don’t see it that way.

You might not see it now, but you were never broken, not even once. You always stood strong, your head up, even when hurting. Because that’s who you are. You feel the very essence of life with your whole being. I think I’m becoming your biggest fan.

I smiled… I meant every word

K: You’re so kind. I wish you were with me all the time. In the doubts, in the endless efforts to belong and be liked, in the longing, sleepless nights, silent cries… All of that.

Me: I will never leave your side. From this moment on, I’m always there, always within reach. Right here, in your chest. When things get heavy and shameful, I will be here, I’ll help you breathe and calm. You’re not gonna drown. I’m gonna be your strength, your anchor, your bodyguard. You are not alone anymore.

she smiled, genuinely and effortlessly, not forced. the kind of smile someone wears when they feel completely happy, completely seen. joy radiating straight from her core. and then she hugged me

Me: I am done avoiding you. Talk to me. Speak from the heart.

Her: Why should anybody listen to what you have to say? No one cares. Everybody wants to just focus on their shit. You’re not special. You have nothing to offer. You think people will pity you? People won’t even feel pity.

she smirked mockingly

Her: They will be completely, utterly indifferent. What fate is worse than that?

Me: Why are you so bitter? I can feel the pain behind the cynicism you carry as your armor.

Her: Why?! You know why! To protect myself, you think anybody would care about us if we open up? You think they won’t hurt us?

I noticed that was the first time she said 'us'

Me: Oh, so you act like a wild hissing cat instead of showing who you are. You want them to leave in disgust.

Her: It’s better than having our hopes up and then having it shattered and feel so shitty again.

Me: Again?

Her: Yes, again.

Me: When did this happen to you before?

Her: Don’t act like you care.

Me: But I do. Honestly.

a deep sigh, her brows furrowed in that familiar skeptical expression that showed she trusted no one. she paused for a moment, tempted, almost gave in, but then changed her mind

Her: What’s in it for you anyway?

Me: I want to know you, I want to understand.

Her: Really? You actually want to understand?

she spoke the sentence in a disbelief and mocking tone, as if I were a small child

Me: I do.

I tried to stay calm. I had to convince her that she could trust me

Me: When did this happen to you, Kate? Can I call you that?

she squirmed in place, obviously uncomfortable, I never felt like calling her by her name before

Kate: When you say it like that, you make me believe you actually care.

she said half angry, half broken

Me: And that’s a bad thing, right?

Kate: Of course it is, cuz you’re gonna leave me like everybody else.

she was not angry, she was resigned, she had given up

Me: I won’t. I promise.

tears were streaming down my face when I realized the depth of her pain. absolute disbelief that somebody could love her, that somebody could stay

Me: I am here, I’m not going anywhere.

Kate: You promise?

hope in her voice, her eyes glowing as if I were looking at a 5-year-old completely at the mercy of their caregiver’s kindness. she was melting, I could feel it

Me: I promise, I will never leave your side. You are mine and I love you.

I said, moved. I wanted to hold her close, to shelter her from the cruel world, to comfort her, to be her protector. she curled up in my arms as if she were a child, not a sixteen-year-old girl. so fragile

Kate: Where have you been until now?

she said anxiously, holding back tears

Kate: Promise you won’t leave me.

she whispered. again. she needed reassurance so badly, even if it meant saying those words a thousand times

Me: I won’t. I’m right here. You’re not alone anymore.

I felt like her mother, fiercely protective and righteously angry, ready to shield my child from anything that might harm them

Me: Rest now. I will be back.

she closed her eyes, calm and still. I could feel the relief spreading through her body. her muscles relaxed, she wrapped herself in the blanket, and fell asleep with a slight smile.

I stared into the emptiness, at the familiar image of my childhood room, but I wasn’t really aware of it. My mind kept replaying her painful words and looks. So familiar. So damn familiar. Like old friends who show up uninvited at your dinner. Again and again, as if they couldn’t believe you truly don’t want them there. They push through the door, the window, any way they can, hoping to break you down and let them in.

Well, not today, my friends. Today I slammed the door in their faces with unprecedented firmness. “You’re not welcome here. Get lost!”

They looked at each other in disbelief, as if I was mocking them, but for the first time they didn’t dare enter. They felt my strength, my determination, my confidence.

Tonight I sat at the table and had dinner in complete peace and silence.

When did we forget how to truly listen to one another, to be each other’s mirror?
I feel as if conversations have become nothing more than exchanges of tiny drops of attention, just enough for each person to feel a little less empty.
An unending thirst, like a razor blade in the throat, bubbling in the chest, waiting for its chance. Just to be able to express.

I’m here! Someone notice me! I have something to offer, I’m not worthless!

Endless cries of thousands of voices into the void of ignorance. We’re facing an epidemic of indifference. Everyone longs to be heard, yet no one wants to sit down and keep their mouth shut. When did we become so irrelevant to each other?

“Drop your Substack below,” they say. And you hear your hopeful thoughts:

Is this it? Is someone finally willing to listen to what I have to say?

I have to post it… just in case

what if it's my only chance

to be heard and relevant

oh, the fear of missing out

Surely this person must be genuine... right?

You quickly push the doubt aside.

Maybe you don’t even care.

Maybe even the faintest chance

to stand on the stage, with the mic to yourself,

is worth it.

Hopes up.

They come. They like. And then they say:

“Subscribe my site, hear what I say.”

And you see the ugly truth:

That you are both just hopeful fools.

A trap wrapped up in honeyed lines,

You failed to see the dressed-up lies.

You’re disappointed and alone.

And you wonder

Maybe I really don’t have anything to say to the world?

You sigh and angrily turn off the screen,

go do something else, go brush your teeth.

Time goes by, you go to sleep

you hold your phone, stare at your feed

your thumb scrolling with casino-like motion,

and you, you’re craving dopamine.

Suddenly, you see it… Drop your...

You don’t even finish reading it.

Your fingers instinctively carry out the well-known act

you hit paste your link.

You feel like there's something off

but you can't quite remember what

so you hit send.

Who knows, maybe this one will be genuine.

Disclaimer: This story is not about not sharing your work — I do it sometimes too. It is a satire about chasing likes and subscribers without real connection, without genuine interest in the living, breathing human on the other side. We all want to be heard. I wish we could find a little more depth within ourselves and be the ones who choose to listen when everyone else just wants to speak.

Or worse, they leave behind a bitter taste of disappointment and unmet expectations. The hope that this time something would finally change.

Real growth, both personal and relational, doesn’t come with shortcuts. It’s not dramatic or obvious. It’s slow, like stones being smoothed by water over many years. The changes are so gradual, they’re easy to miss. The water crashes against them, splashing in all directions. But one day, years later, it flows gently around their softened edges, calm and steady.

When I first understood the ideas of respect, taking responsibility for myself, and stepping out of the victim mindset, I believed I had won. I thought I had it all figured out. That I’d wake up the next day in a different world, handling everything better, glowing with newfound wisdom. Imagine that!

Well, it didn’t take long to realize just how far from the truth that really was.

That kind of understanding is just the beginning. The foundation stone for a new structure.

For a long time, I imagined how grand and beautiful that building would look. But somewhere in all that dreaming, I forgot I’d have to get my hands dirty. I forgot I’d need to build the walls, dig the trenches, do the messy, uncomfortable work so that one day I could decorate the walls and buy flower pots. Some hard experiences shook that dream so deeply, it fell apart right in front of me.

All that was left was one lonely brick.

The foundation.

And the tools I had to pick up and start using. Every single day. Even if all I could manage was to move one small step forward.

Every tiny victory over my ego counts.

Choosing respect.

Choosing kindness.

Letting go of resentment and the urge to get even.

Honoring boundaries.

Taking real steps toward loving myself.

Even the smallest win adds up. It gathers slowly, like a snowball, and little by little, shapes me into someone stronger and softer at the same time. I might not notice it right away, but the truth is, the water has already started to wear away my sharp edges.

The only thing I have to do is keep going.

Even when it hurts.

Even when I’m exhausted.

Even when I can’t see the point.

So I’ll try to be gentle with myself. I’ll give myself time. No one changes overnight.

I’ll trust that even the fiercest waves crashing into me now will, one day, pass by as nothing more than a soft ripple.

All those women who shared their stories with me of such a fragile, vulnerable moment as giving birth. They spoke of loneliness. Of not being understood. Of a wide, aching gap between them and the rest of the world.

Birth is intimate in a way that’s hard to describe.
A single careless word could shatter a woman in that moment. Leave a mark that never fades. That’s how strange, how sacred, how powerful this experience is.

I won’t lie to you
Birth is always, in some way, traumatizing.
To me, that’s because the whole experience feels more animal than human.
A visceral reminder that no matter how evolved we are, in our core nature, we are still mammals.

During my first birth, my husband was with me from beginning to end.
His presence, our deep connection, those were my anchors in the middle of a foreign sea.
Because that’s what birth is.
Foreign. Unpredictable. Something no one can fully prepare for or understand unless they’ve lived it. It tests your body, your mind, your soul.
And once you’ve walked through it, you can never look at life the same way again.

I leaned on my husband.
For comfort, for help, for strength.
Like a frightened child. Like someone not yet whole.
I had no idea how much power was already alive inside me.

My second birth was the complete opposite. I was alone.
A snowstorm had blanketed the city in silence, that thick, velvety hush that only falling snow can bring.
Through the hospital window, I watched it cover the world in white.
It felt almost magical.
It’s one of the images burned into my memory from that sacred moment — the birth of a new life.

Silence.
Snow.
Solitude.
Pain.

Just me and my thoughts.
Thoughts that could have broken me
Or made me stronger.

I never imagined I could face something like that alone.
As someone who feels deeply and I dare say, is quite self-aware and present, I witnessed something unexpected rise in me.
A quiet force.
Bubbling beneath the surface, coming straight from the core of who I am.
With every wave of pain, I felt stronger, even while losing control.
I became the witness of an incredible human power and adaptability.

My own.

No one else’s.

My husband walked in about three minutes after the spectacle.
He looked more wrecked than I did.
I, on the other hand, was floating in awe.
Bathing in a lake of inner strength I could almost taste.

I did this.
No one else.

I looked at the tiny being in my arms and felt something shift inside me.

That experience rewrote something at my core.
The doubts I had about myself were gone. Replaced by a quiet, unshakable belief in my own strength and resilience.
I was alone, and I made it.
I was overwhelmed, and I came through.
No one came to save me and still I faced the fire with courage.

Something changed in me that day.
I began to believe I could handle anything I set my heart to.
That no matter what life throws at me, no matter how painful

I will find a way.
I will survive.
And I’ll come out victorious.

I have never felt more confident.
It may sound strange,
But because I stayed close to myself, sensitive to my inner world, I watched an incredible transformation unfold.
A renaissance.

That day, not only was my son born
But so was a new version of me.