The Woman Who Forgot to Want

Her name was Mira. The kind of woman people described as “supportive,” “selfless,” “a rock.” She had always been the one who made room—for others, for their dreams, for their chaos. A good partner, they’d say. A quiet achiever. The kind who never made too much noise about what she needed. Or maybe she just stopped talking about it altogether.

She used to dream. Not in the grand, billboard kind of way, but in soft-focus details—late-night writing sessions with her dog at her feet, a sunlit kitchen where she’d bake bread without watching the clock, her own design studio where her name sat neatly on the door. She used to dream like someone who believed she was allowed to.

Then she fell in love with someone who dreamed loudly. Boldly. Tirelessly. And she wanted to be close to that kind of fire. So she did what women like her often do—she made space.

At first, it felt good. Purposeful. She took pride in the way she orchestrated things behind the scenes so he could shine. She smiled when he told people he couldn’t have done it without her. He meant it, she thought. He had to.

But somewhere along the line, her sacrifices stopped feeling noble and started to feel like silence. The dreams she’d shelved began to gather dust. Her wants became background noise—even to herself. She’d bent so far to accommodate his world that she could no longer stand up straight in her own.

The day she realized she couldn’t remember the last thing she wanted was the day she broke.

It wasn’t dramatic. No screaming. No door slamming. Just a quiet Tuesday morning where she stared at a cup of tea gone cold and thought, I don’t matter here.

It wasn’t that he was cruel. It was that he didn’t notice. She had shrunk so gradually, so graciously, that even her basic needs had become invisible—to him, to the world, to herself.

This wasn’t a story about heartbreak. It was a story about disappearance.
And now, it’s a story about return.

But Mira?
She’s learning how to remember herself.

Not all at once. Not in grand declarations.
But in small, trembling choices—saying no, saying yes, saying I don’t like that, saying I need more.

She’s piecing together the fragments of the woman she used to be, and the woman she still might become.

She’s learning that wanting isn’t selfish. That needing isn’t shameful.
That her life doesn’t have to be the background to someone else’s spotlight.

And this time, she’s not asking for permission.