Captain's log | 07-17-2026
I've lived through so many wounds that I have forgotten what it feels like not to flinch at the slightest sign of displeasure. Whenever someone's tone shifts or their silence lingers too long, I instinctively search for my own wrongdoing. I wonder if I said too much, too little, or became something burdensome without realizing it. Somewhere along the way, I learned to make myself the culprit before anyone else ever could.
My first instinct is never anger or confusion—it is guilt. I carry it so naturally that I scarcely question its presence anymore. I convince myself that if someone is hurting or upset, then I must have placed the hurt there with my own hands. And though I know, in quieter moments, that not every storm is of my making, my heart has yet to learn what my mind already understands.
What pains me most is not that I do this once, but that I do it over and over again. I become both the wound and the one who deepens it. I ache for a version of myself that did not learn to apologize simply for existing. And there are days when I grieve knowing that I do not know how to undo what trauma has taught me—to stop blaming myself for every fractured moment and to finally believe that not everything broken was broken by my hands.
