jade, lately

thirty feels less like an ending and more like finally coming home to myself.

i spent so many years surviving things i never spoke about out loud, carrying grief in quiet places, loving people harder than i ever loved myself, waiting for life to begin while watching it pass me by. but somewhere along the way, the hurting softened. the ache stopped feeling permanent. and for the first time in a long time, i can finally say i am at peace.

so this is what turning thirty means to me:

not losing my youth,

but finding myself.

i am no longer begging to be chosen, understood, or enough for people who could not hold me gently. i am no longer shrinking to fit into places that only loved me conditionally. i have made peace with the versions of me that only knew how to survive.

and now, i want more.

more laughter.

more softness.

more love that does not leave scars.

more mornings that feel light.

more life.

maybe my story did not begin the way i hoped it would. maybe it took me thirty years to become someone i could finally recognize in the mirror. but i think there is something beautiful about arriving late and still arriving whole.

life begins for me now.

the golden days of victories and fame have put my name out there, where people hung on to every word I wrote. I was the poet. I was the writer. until i chose to put down the pen to bring my ghosts to rest.

happy May 1st.

I didn’t realize when it started — this quiet ache of being second. Not unloved, not abandoned. Just… almost. Almost chosen. Almost seen.

It’s a strange kind of disappointment, the kind that doesn’t slam doors or shatter glass. It settles instead. Soft. Persistent. Like dust on a bookshelf you keep meaning to clean but never quite do.

We spend time together, yes. We sit on the same call, share the same hours, say the same goodnight. And yet I feel like I’m watching you from behind a thin sheet of glass. You’re there. I can see you. I can hear you laugh. But your attention drifts — always drifting — toward something else. Another screen. Another thought. Another world I don’t quite belong to.

I share things with you. Songs. Games. Little pieces of myself that feel like bridges. “Maybe we can try this,” I say, hopeful. And we never do. They sit there, unopened, like letters returned to sender.

I learn the things you like. I ask about the games, the interests, the conversations that light your eyes up. I memorize details the way someone cramming for an exam does — hoping that if I just study enough, if I just catch up fast enough, I’ll finally be fluent in your language. Maybe then I’ll feel closer. Maybe then I won’t feel like I’m running behind you, breathless, while you walk effortlessly ahead.

It’s exhausting, loving someone from the sidelines of their own life.

Feeling like I’m always catching up. Always adjusting. Always trying to fit into a shape that feels just slightly too small for me.

But love shouldn’t feel like a race.

It shouldn’t feel like constantly adjusting your pace so you don’t get left behind.

And what hurts most isn’t that we’re different. It’s that sometimes it feels like we’re two separate worlds orbiting the same sun, close enough to see each other — but never quite colliding. Never quite merging.

I don’t want to compete with your interests. I don’t want to be louder than your hobbies or brighter than your distractions. I just want to feel chosen. Fully. Intentionally. Like when we’re together, I am not just an option running quietly in the background.

It’s not jealousy. It’s not anger.

It’s the feeling of being second choice in the tiny moments that build a relationship.

And the smallest things hurt the most, because they’re the ones that could have been so easy.

I still love you in the middle of it. I still wait for the moments when your focus locks onto me, when your voice softens, when it feels like it’s just us. Those moments are beautiful. They keep me hopeful. They keep me trying.

But sometimes I wonder… how long can someone keep trying before they feel small?