Reconciling self-worth with the messy truth about love and effort
It didn’t end with a bang. It ended like a slow leak. Not with a betrayal, but with a shrug. A tired sigh followed by:
“It’s fine.”
It wasn’t. I knew it. My body had known it longer than my mouth was willing to admit. The sigh was just a placeholder for all the things I didn’t feel safe enough—or maybe brave enough—to say.
It wasn’t one big thing. It was a hundred little ones. Another casual plan that included me on paper but excluded me in practice. A conversation that skipped right past what I needed and landed where it always did: convenience.
People love comfort. And when you become someone else’s comfort zone, you stop being seen. You’re just expected to show up, nod along, and smile.
So I stopped. I pulled the emergency brake on the version of me that made things easy. I swapped people-pleasing for boundaries and apologizing for silence. It felt like taking my life off autopilot. It felt sharp. It felt good.
Until it didn’t.
Because setting boundaries is easy in theory. In practice, it’s a lonely recalibration. You don’t get a standing ovation when you stop shrinking. You get quiet. You get space. You get time to rethink everything you thought was true.
Here’s the uncomfortable part: clarity costs you comfort.
We talk about glow-ups, but no one warns you about the glow-down. The emotional hangover that follows all that empowering advice. The weird quiet after the walkout. The strange hollowness when you stop performing ease and start demanding equity.
Relationships don’t work like story arcs. There’s no tidy climax. No satisfying villain. Just two people running their own software, hoping the programs are compatible. Most people aren’t malicious. They’re just running a different operating system.
So yes, some of them were trying. They just didn’t speak my language.
I didn’t see it at first.
The small, steady ways care showed up. A lamp fixed before I realized it was broken. A bottle of water on my desk. A quiet presence on my worst days—no speeches, no performance, just presence.
I was so focused on grand gestures that I missed the quiet ones.
I thought love had to look like fireworks. He showed me it could look like a light left on in the hallway.
We’re trained to crave spectacle. We want the movie montage, the anniversary dinner, the handwritten letters.
But real love is often painfully ordinary. It doesn’t post well on social media. It’s not always poetic.
It’s in the hand that grabs your groceries. The silence that doesn’t need to be filled. The person who doesn’t need you to sparkle, just to show up.
I almost missed it. Because I was too busy measuring effort in my own units. Expecting everyone to show up the way I do, say things the way I say them, love me in my own love language.
That’s not fair. That’s not real.
Some people love you with flair. Some just love you with function.
And if you only recognize the flair, you’ll throw away people who are building the foundation.
This isn’t about settling. It’s about widening your lens.
I still won’t take crumbs. But I also won’t dismiss a whole meal because it came in a lunchbox instead of a gift box.
Growth isn’t loud. It’s subtle. It’s the decision to stay and pay closer attention. It’s noticing what’s been there all along, waiting to be named.
Because the kind of love that endures? It doesn’t shout. It doesn’t beg. It just shows up. Every single time.
In a world obsessed with the appearance of love, I’ve learned to value the reality of it. Not the curated version. The lived-in one.
The love that’s not trying to go viral. Just trying to get the dishes done.
That’s the kind of love I’m building toward. That’s the kind of love I trust.
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