Hiraeth.

I’ve spent this entire week trying to convince my own body that it’s safe.

It doesn’t believe me.

The panic attacks are still here.

My chest still collapses out of nowhere. My arms feel so heavy. My legs feel like they’re carrying concrete. Sometimes I just lie there because I genuinely don’t have the strength to move.

I didn’t know emotional pain could become physical.

I didn’t know heartbreak could make your own body turn against you.

I keep hearing, “You’ll be okay.”

I know I will.

another wave of fear that leaves me feeling like i’m collapsing.

i keep asking myself the same questions:

will i stay like this forever?

will i ever get back to who i used to be?

i don’t need everything to be perfect.

i’m not asking for a perfect life.

i just want to be okay.

I thought I was doing okay, until you showed up in my dreams for the first time.

You kept asking me why I left. Your family kept asking me why I left.

I woke up before I could answer them, so here's my answer.

I left because I was disappearing.

I was trying so hard to become the version of me I thought you'd love that I stopped recognizing the woman in the mirror. Every conversation, every decision, every compromise felt like I was auditioning for the role of "good wife" instead of simply existing as myself.

That wasn't me.

I wasn't built to spend the rest of my life apologizing for who I am.

Night after night, I was exhausting myself trying to become someone else, and in the process, I was losing the person I had spent thirty years becoming. If I had stayed, I genuinely don't know what would've happened to me. I don't say that dramatically. I say it because that's how deeply I was unraveling.

You never really knew me.

You knew the version of me that was trying to survive.

I woke up breathing heavily, wondering why my mind was still trying to explain itself to someone I've already said goodbye to.

Maybe I'm not ready to be someone's wife.

Maybe I'm still learning who I am before I can promise forever to anyone else.

What I do know—without a single doubt—is that I wasn't meant to spend forever with you.

I still hope life is kind to you.

Ever since last week, all I've heard is that I've ruined my future. That I threw away my only chance. That now I'll grow into some tragic, wretched spinster because I said no to someone who was, by all accounts, a nice man.

Do people realize how cruel those words are?

I'm thirty. Not ninety.

None of us knows what's waiting tomorrow, next week, or next year. No one knows who they'll meet, who they'll lose, or how life will unfold. Yet somehow everyone seems so certain that my story has already been written because I walked away from a relationship that wasn't right for me.

What they don't know is that I was already disappearing long before I left.

I didn't tell anyone I was engaged. I kept it hidden, tucked away where no one could see it. And every day, I performed a version of myself that I thought would make him happy. I smiled when I didn't want to. I spoke in ways that didn't feel like me. I slowly became someone I couldn't even recognize anymore.

Maybe I performed too well.

Because somewhere along the way, he fell for the person I was pretending to be.

Every morning I woke up with tears already waiting for me. Every time I heard his voice, my chest tightened until it hurt. I kept wishing for impossible things just so everything would stop. Just so everyone else could finally be at peace.

Coming back to this account after everything feels strange.

This little corner of the internet has seen every version of me. It has watched me grow up, fall apart, fall in love, grieve, hope, disappear, and somehow keep coming back. Out of everywhere I've existed online, this has always been the only place that has ever felt safe.

No expectations. No performance. No audience I have to impress.

Just me.

Everyone keeps asking if I'm okay.

The truth is... I haven't been okay for a long time.

The only difference is that I got very good at pretending I was.

Because that's what I've always done.

That's showbiz, I guess.

But I'm exhausted.

I don't want to perform anymore.

I just wish...