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I used to think letting go meant not caring anymore.

So I held on. To outcomes. To people. To the idea that if I just gave enough, did enough, loved enough — I could make things go the way I needed them to go. I could make people feel what I felt. Give what I gave. See me the way I so desperately needed to be seen.

I couldn't.

And the heaviest thing I've had to put down isn't a person. It's the belief that love is a transaction. That if I pour out enough, something equal will pour back in. That I can control what I receive by controlling how much I give.

That belief cost me a lot of peace. A lot of energy. A lot of years.

Letting go, I'm learning, isn't indifference. It's not giving up on people. It's not loving less.

It's saying: I will love you fully, and I will also ask for what I need. And if those two things can't exist in the same space, I will have to make peace with that.

It's opening your hands — around outcomes, around people, around your children and the way you thought their lives would look.

My daughter is teaching me this. Slowly. Humbly. In the most inconvenient and necessary way.

There's a quieter life on the other side of control. A fuller breath. A love that doesn't exhaust you because it's finally honest.

There's a thing that happens when you're afraid of losing something.

You hold it tighter. You give more. You try to create conditions so perfect that there's no reason for anyone to leave. You pour yourself out completely — and then you wait. Silently. Desperately. For them to pour back into you the same way.

And when they don't, you don't understand why. Because you gave so much. Because you loved so hard. Because you did everything you thought love was supposed to look like.

What I didn't understand then was that I was loving people the way I needed to be loved — and expecting them to receive it as a blueprint. A hint. A mirror they would naturally reflect back.

They didn't. Not because they didn't care. But because nobody told them what I actually needed. Because I never told them. Because I thought love meant you shouldn't have to.

And so the cycle continued. I'd give. They'd receive it as just that — a gift, not a language. I'd feel unseen. I'd give more. They'd pull away from the weight of it. And I'd be left wondering what I did wrong when really the problem was what I never said.

A self-fulfilling prophecy. Built on silence and unspoken needs.

Understanding this didn't fix everything. But it cracked something open.

I stopped asking why don't they love me right and started asking why can't I just ask for what I need.

That's the uncomfortable part.

She shows up before the thing even starts.

Before the conversation, before the attempt, before you've even given yourself a real chance — she's already there. Whispering that it won't work. That you'll pour yourself out again and get nothing back. That it's safer not to try.

I know her well.

She's the part of me that learned, early, that giving everything wasn't a guarantee of receiving anything. So she started pulling back before the disappointment could arrive. Started sabotaging things before they could fail on their own.

Because if I destroy it first, at least I'm in control of how it ends.

That's what self-sabotage really is, underneath all of it. It's not laziness. It's not weakness. It's a protection strategy that stopped serving you a long time ago.

I've held myself back in rooms I deserved to be in. I've talked myself out of things before anyone else got the chance to say no. I've picked fights when things were going well because some part of me was just waiting for it to fall apart anyway.

And I've had to ask myself the question that changed everything:

What would I do if I actually believed I deserved for it to work out?

I'm still answering that question. But I've stopped letting fear make the final call.

She's afraid. She doesn't get to be in charge anymore.

I didn't know I was doing it for years.

I thought I was being loving. Thoughtful. Selfless. I would do things before you even asked. I would show up in every way I knew how — and I would do it consistently, quietly, and at great cost to myself.

And somewhere underneath all of that giving was a belief I had never said out loud:

If I love you the way I need to be loved, maybe you'll eventually love me back the same way.

I was speaking a language and hoping you'd learn it by osmosis. I never told you what I needed. I just kept giving, and kept watching, and kept score in a way I didn't even admit to myself.

That's not love. That's a silent contract the other person never signed.

And when they didn't give back in the way I was aching for — not because they didn't care, but because they simply didn't know — I would fall apart. And call it heartbreak. When really it was the pain of a need I had never learned to voice.

I was so afraid that asking would make people leave. So I gave instead of asked. Performed instead of communicated. Made myself indispensable instead of making myself known.

Desperate love exhausts everyone. Including yourself.

I'm learning what it means to love with open hands. To say what I need out loud, even when my voice shakes. To stop giving as a way of controlling what I get back.

It's the hardest thing I've ever unlearned.

I used to think I was just a giver.

Someone who loved hard, showed up fully, and did everything for the people in my life. And for a long time, that's how I explained it to myself — I just love deeply.

But the truth, the one I had to sit with in the quiet, was more complicated than that.

I gave so much because I thought if I gave enough, they would understand what I needed. I was loving people the way I wanted to be loved — and silently waiting for them to speak a language I never taught them. Never said out loud. Never even fully admitted to myself.

I thought doing things for them would make them receive it the way I wanted them to give to me.

And when they didn't? When the love didn't come back in the shape I was expecting — after everything I had poured out — something in me would collapse. Quietly. The kind of collapse nobody sees.

So I'd give more. Do more. Show up more. Thinking the problem was that I hadn't done enough yet.

It wasn't just love. It was control wearing love's clothes.

And my daughter is the one humbling me through all of this. Watching her move through the world in her own way, on her own time, and feeling that familiar panic rise in me — made me realize this was never really about them. It was about me, and how unsafe it felt to need something and not know how to ask for it.

Control is fear with a plan.

Letting go is learning to ask for what you need instead of performing for it.

I'm still learning. But at least now I can see it.

So I made a place for the in-between. Between discipline and doubt. Between losses and lessons. Between who I was and who I’m becoming.