Some people find it nearly impossible to give up on others. They hold on through disappointment, mistreatment, even outright neglect—because, deep down, the idea of walking away feels unnatural. Almost wrong. It took years to understand why. A child doesn’t get to decide who stays or leaves. A seven-year-old with a distant mother or an unpredictable father doesn’t think, “This relationship is unhealthy for me.” They adjust. They learn to wait for warmth, to decode mixed signals, to justify the absence of kindness. They convince themselves …
The Ache of Being Misunderstood
I’ve spent an unreasonable amount of time wishing someone would truly understand me. Not just the surface-level stuff—likes, dislikes, pet peeves—but the real, messy, layered parts. The contradictions, the hidden wounds, the tangled thoughts that even I struggle to sort through. And for a while, I believed that if I could just explain myself better, if I could find the right words, the right person, the right moment—then someone would finally see me for who I am. Completely. Without distortion. Without misinterpretation. Without me having to …
The Things That Mattered (And The Things That Never Did)
I spent my 20s running. Running toward something I couldn't quite name, chasing the version of myself I thought I was supposed to become. I wanted to look like I had it together, like I belonged, like I was important. And then one day, somewhere between exhaustion and self-reflection, I realized—I was running in the wrong direction. Here’s what I wish I knew sooner. 1. You’re Not As Important As You Think (And That’s A Good Thing) For years, I obsessed over what people thought of me. Every mistake felt monumental, every judgment carved …
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The Love You’re Chasing Isn’t Love at All
Ever noticed how the relationships you obsess over have a common theme? They always involve someone who is never fully available. Not completely out of reach, but never quite there either. It’s a special kind of torture. The almost-but-not-quite dynamic. The late replies, the mixed signals, the flashes of connection that disappear just as quickly. And yet, you stay. Why? Because there’s something intoxicating about that space in between. The gap between who they are and who they could be. Between what the relationship is and what it …
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How Wild Taught Me That Strength Is a Choice
I didn’t know women could do this. Hell, I didn’t know people could do this. When I first picked up Wild by Cheryl Strayed, I had no real concept of long-distance hiking. I thought of nature as something you visited for a few hours, maybe a weekend if you were adventurous. The idea of walking for months through the wilderness, alone, carrying everything you needed on your back? That was the stuff of movies or, at best, something rugged men did in the 1800s. But here was this woman—Cheryl—who had never even gone on a hike before deciding to …
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You Teach People How to Treat You
The first time I let it slide, I told myself it wasn’t a big deal. It was just a joke. Just a passing comment. Just them being them. I nodded along, laughed where I was supposed to, and carried on. Then it happened again. And again. And again. Until one day, I caught myself sitting across from someone, listening to words that drained the color from my face, and thinking: How did we get here? And I knew exactly how. All those moments of silence. All the times I bit my tongue instead of pushing back. Every little excuse I …