This Thing I Call Life

Because a part of you wants softness so badly. You want reassurance. Understanding. Someone being gentle with you for once. You want to feel emotionally held instead of constantly carrying everything alone.

But the second someone does care about you, another feeling appears almost immediately.

Guilt.

Suddenly you feel like you are being dramatic. Too emotional. Too needy. Too dependent. Like you are taking up too much space just by needing comfort in the first place.

So instead of fully relaxing into being cared for, you start apologizing. Downplaying your feelings. Pulling away. Acting “fine” too quickly because vulnerability starts feeling embarrassing once someone actually sees it.

And honestly, a lot of people learn this guilt somewhere.

Sometimes from growing up feeling like your emotions were inconvenient. Sometimes from being comforted inconsistently. Sometimes from only receiving care when things became severe enough to “deserve” it. Sometimes from being treated like a burden for needing support at all.

So now even kindness can feel emotionally unsafe.

Not because you do not want it, but because part of you still believes needing comfort makes you difficult to love.

But human beings are meant to need each other sometimes.

Wanting reassurance does not make you manipulative.

Wanting gentleness does not make you weak.

Wanting someone to care when you are hurting does not make you “too much.”

And I hope one day comfort stops feeling like something you have to apologize for receiving.

I hope one day you let people hold your feelings gently without immediately trying to shrink yourself afterward.

You deserve softness too. Not only when you are easy, useful, independent, or perfectly okay.