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<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\nSometimes I think love changes shape before we even notice it.
You start out open and sure, feeling seen in a way that feels new, and then slowly the balance shifts. It\u2019s not one moment or one fight. More like a steady wearing down, quiet things you stop saying, small things you overlook because they don\u2019t seem worth the argument.
And then at some point you realize you\u2019ve been adjusting who you are just to keep the peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s strange how the need to feel close can make silence feel safer than honesty. It\u2019s not self-delusion exactly. It\u2019s more this fear that if you face what\u2019s changing, you\u2019ll lose what made everything feel alive to begin with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s a moment, though, when you start catching yourself. And what do you even do with that kind of knowing? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n You stay for a while, hoping it\u2019ll feel simple again. Sometimes it almost does. After a while, love stops being the thing that steadies you and starts being the thing you need to recover from. You still care, maybe even more than before, but caring doesn\u2019t make you whole anymore. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And you start understanding, slowly, that <\/p>\n\n\n\n Love isn\u2019t supposed to cost you the parts of yourself that made you loveable in the first place.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sometimes I think love changes shape before we even notice it. You start out open and sure, feeling seen in a way that feels new, and then slowly the balance shifts. It\u2019s not one moment or one fight. More like a steady wearing down, quiet things you stop saying, small things you overlook because they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","pgc_sgb_lightbox_settings":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[103,71,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-4852","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-life","7":"tag-growth","8":"tag-healing","9":"tag-love","10":"entry","11":"has-post-thumbnail"},"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"vasudha","author_link":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/author\/vasudha\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4852"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4852"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4852\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4863,"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4852\/revisions\/4863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4852"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4852"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideaweb.me\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4852"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
You tell yourself this is what love means \u2014 patience, compromise, understanding <\/em>\u2014 even when part of you starts feeling smaller around the person you care about.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In how careful your words sound. In how tired you feel after being with them.
You start tracing the outlines of yourself before all this. The version of you who didn\u2019t double-think every feeling.
It\u2019s disorienting, that quiet awareness that something warm turned heavy and you can\u2019t name when or why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the longer you try to fix it, the more you sense the trade \u2014 small slices of self-respect exchanged for tiny doses of comfort. Not out of weakness. Just out of wanting the story to hold together a little longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n