Everything felt urgent. Every silence, every delay, every unread message—it all carried weight it didn’t deserve. I’d tricked myself into believing that my peace was sitting on the other end of an email or a perfectly worded reply.
It was a full-time job—this obsession with controlling the uncontrollable. I wasn’t trying to understand. I was trying to rewrite reality so it matched the script I’d been clinging to. The one where things made sense. The one where I always got the ending I wanted, if I worked hard enough for it.
But life isn’t interested in my outlines. And it took me way too long to realize that grasping doesn’t guarantee anything but fatigue.
What wore me out wasn’t the disappointment itself. It was the loop of overthinking, trying to decode silence like it was a foreign language I could eventually master. I’d hold onto people and outcomes like they were limited-edition, even when all the signs said “this isn’t it.” There was no clarity, just emotional clutter.
Scarcity crept in disguised as loyalty. I’d stay in dynamics I’d long outgrown, convinced that letting go meant failure. That it was smarter to compromise than to feel empty. But clinging to the wrong things didn’t protect me from loneliness. It delivered me right into it.
Letting go wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t a breakthrough in a yoga class or a spontaneous epiphany on a hike. It looked more like quietly deleting messages I’d read fifty times. Muting conversations that drained me. Logging off without announcing it. Walking away without bitterness or theatrics.
There’s a moment when trying harder starts looking a lot like self-abandonment. I hit that point. Not because I stopped caring, but because I was done convincing. Done overperforming in hopes of being seen. Done tying my value to someone else’s recognition of it.
Control dressed itself up like discipline. I bought the outfit. I believed that if I just managed every variable, stayed one step ahead, I could outrun disappointment. But perfection is exhausting and rarely rewarded. Control didn’t keep me safe. It kept me small.
I learned to release the illusion that certainty equals security. Things won’t always go how I want. People won’t always show up the way I hoped. Opportunities might slip past me. None of that means I’m lost. It means I’m human.
There’s strength in doing your part and then stepping back. Not everything needs to be chased. Not everything requires closure. Sometimes peace comes when you decide something is done—without fanfare, without proof, without someone else’s agreement.
I stopped demanding clarity from people who thrive in confusion. I stopped waiting for situations to hurt less before I left them. Most of all, I stopped turning every rejection into a referendum on my worth.
My ego still tries to reroute me back into the mess. It wants drama. It wants the plot twist where they come back, where the story redeems itself. But I don’t follow that thread anymore. I let the plot drop when it stops serving me.
Now, when something falls apart, I notice what I reach for. If I find myself grasping again, I pause. Not everything needs fixing. Not every pause is a problem. Sometimes space is the healing.
I trust myself more now. Not because I finally figured life out, but because I’ve stopped outsourcing my peace. I’m not waiting for the universe to reward me for suffering beautifully. I’m just living, honestly and without grip.
If it’s mine, I won’t need to force it. If it’s not, I won’t chase it.
Either way, I’ll be fine.
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