May be it was only me Alone

Mary Oliver, For Tom Shaw (1945-2014)

Langston Hughes, I Loved My Friend

Jane Eyre (2011) dir. Cary Fukunaga

Jamie Anderson, ‘As the lights wink out...’ from All My Loose Ends

Martha Wainwright, All Your Clothes

Leila Chatti, What Will Happen

Mary Oliver, For Tom Shaw (1945-2014)

Empty Chairs at Empty Tables, from Les Misérables

Jandy Nelson, The Sky Is Everywhere

Margaret Atwood, Down

Thomas Hardy, The Dead Man Walking

Ada Limón, Lashed To The Helm, All Stiff And Stark

I became very good at convincing people I was okay.

I smiled when I was supposed to. I showed up when people expected me to. I handled responsibilities, met deadlines, and kept moving forward.

From the outside, my life probably looked normal.

Maybe even successful.

But there is a difference between functioning and flourishing.

And I had been functioning for a very long time.

I don't think anyone intentionally decides to disconnect from themselves.

I think it happens gradually.

You learn to compartmentalize.

You tuck difficult emotions away because there are lunches to pack, bills to pay, appointments to keep, and people depending on you.

So you tell yourself you'll deal with it later.

Later turns into weeks.

Weeks turn into years.

And eventually, you become so accustomed to carrying everything that you forget what it feels like to set it down.

I had mastered the art of appearing capable.

What people didn't see were the racing thoughts that kept me awake at night.

The exhaustion that no amount of sleep seemed to fix.

The loneliness of carrying struggles I didn't know how to explain.

I had become disconnected from my own needs because everyone else's seemed more important.

I kept thinking that if I could just hold everything together a little longer, eventually things would get easier.

Eventually, I would feel different.

Eventually, I would feel like myself again.

But healing doesn't usually arrive through endurance.

Sometimes, the harder we work to appear fine, the further we drift from the truth.

And the truth was this:

I wasn't fine.

I was tired.

I was overwhelmed.

And underneath the version of myself I had carefully constructed for everyone else, there was a woman quietly asking,

"How much longer can I keep doing this?"

Looking back now, I don't judge her.

I understand her.

She wasn't trying to deceive anyone.

She was trying to survive.

And when survival becomes your normal, asking for help can feel impossible.

But the cracks were there.

The questions were getting louder.

And for the first time in a very long time, I was beginning to wonder if simply getting through the day was enough.

Maybe I wanted more than survival.

Maybe I deserved more than survival.

I just wasn't quite sure how to get there yet.

❤️If you're reading this...

If you've become an expert at saying, "I'm fine," even when you're anything but...

If you've spent years carrying everyone else's needs while ignoring your own...

If you've been surviving for so long that you don't remember what thriving feels like...

Please know this:

You don't have to earn rest. You don't have to prove that you're struggling enough to deserve support. And you don't have to carry everything alone.

Sometimes the bravest thing we can do is tell the truth—even if it's only to ourselves at first.

You are allowed to need help.

You are allowed to want more than survival.

And you are worthy of a life that feels peaceful, too.