but you weren't raised in a safe house. like generational wealth, it just skipped you. neither of your parents really know how to apologize or to talk to you with peace in their hearts. at sixteen, just once, you'd written down a little speech and tried to give it to your mom: hey i don't like it when you comment about my body and she'd given you this strange look, almost alien, and you'd felt stupid and small, then. and your father? fuck no. many years later you'd describe it to your therapist: in my house we just pretended like nothing had happened. like, overnight: all the pain was gone.

and since you weren't raised right, you struggled in school, too, didn't you. you struggled making friends because the architecture of appropriate behavior blindsided you. you weren't cruel - but you obviously seemed off to the other kids, strange in a way that was somehow always abrasive. and in that state - unhappy at home, unhappy during the school day - you would have given anything to have been loved. any person and any context.

so it's fine when your friend is a little pushy or mean or controlling. sure, she keeps you up late with threats of suicide but tells you never to call an ambulance. sure, he constantly pressures you for sex. sure, they are overly clingy one day just to disappear the next. all of them are still your friend, which is new. you don't understand this idea on the internet that you could just "cut people out" if they don't "serve" you. if you cut out the people in your life who take from you; you would have nothing and no one. maybe the people who can exile others just have more to choose from. maybe they had good parents. maybe they just have had an easier life, and have never needed someone.

not that you need people (you do. it makes you sick how badly you need people to like you), you rarely ask for more, don't you. so when you finally get into a relationship - well; now you're really chosen. and what's more, they make you feel wanted. even if it's just for a fraction of a second, you get to say: this is my person. holy shit.

nobody is perfect. hell, you're not perfect either. and how many times do you hear the words relationships take work. it's work but it's worth it. your hands shaking on the steering wheel. you have tried podcasts and audiobooks and self-healing and (in utter desperation) even a chatbot (it was a bad night. inside of the yelling, you'd thought: this is just the normal shape of my life). and the thing is that you want to give people grace. you want them to feel like you don't take everything personally. maybe that's why you're terrified to set a boundary.

and everywhere the positivity like an earthquake at your feet. all of this should feel like healing! you should practice gratitude! repair will feel good, right? it will feel good, eventually. the problem is probably you, actually: maybe you are just bad at it. you need to control your emotions more, you're always lashing out at the wrong things. some part of you is still sixteen, writing a dramatic letter to your mother. some part of you is still hiding from your father.

it must be like how they name mascara better than sex, then. repair is something you can buy lessons for; it is likely that repair doesn't really feel good - you're just being marketed to. the people who are able to have hard conversations and actually feel good: those are also people who have that generational wealth where their parents are normal or even kind and their friends were supportive and gentle and their partners never raised their voice. it feels good to them, but you probably will never feel safe enough for it, how could you.

but then you meet her, and she hurts you by accident. shaking, you bring up your handwritten bulleted list of things you have condensed into the smallest, gentlest packet of information. you have codified it into the perfect therapy speak. you have practiced it for three days, trying to make sure it is the best and least offensive version of things.

and she just... accepts it. and holds your hand. and asks you gentle questions about everything. she apologizes immediately. there's no fight, no yelling. you walk away feeling - good. it feels good to be cared for, it feels good to be seen.

I'M SORRY BY PETRA COLLINS