Smiled through things that deserved a different response entirely. Not because I was afraid exactly — more because somewhere along the way I absorbed this idea that being easy to be around was the same thing as being good.

It isn't. I know that now.

There's a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from constant self-editing. It doesn't arrive dramatically — it accumulates. One small compromise at a time, until one day you realise you've been performing a reduced version of yourself for so long that you've forgotten what the full version sounds like in a room.

I'm in the process of remembering. It's quieter than I expected — not a dramatic reclaiming, just a series of small daily choices to take up the space I'm actually entitled to. To say the real thing. To let a silence be a silence rather than rushing to fill it with softness nobody asked for. 🕯️

At this point in my life, I have neither the time nor the inclination to be less than I am for the comfort of