Lines Between Living

 I woke up before dawn with a thought I couldn’t shake how many parts of me I’ve silenced just to make someone else feel comfortable. 

How many times I’ve swallowed my own light to be the version of “enough” someone else needed.

It’s heartbreaking to admit how easy it was to disappear piece by piece. And even harder to face the truth: none of it ever worked. Because the people I kept contorting myself for? 

They still found me too much, or not enough, or somehow both at once.

Now I’m doing something different. I’m calling those missing parts back.

I’m asking myself for forgiveness for betraying my own heart while trying to keep others happy. 

For neglecting the things that made me feel alive. For forgetting that the love I was searching for has been here, within me, all along.

I’m relearning the things I once loved the joy of pen and paper, the ritual of capturing memories, the art of telling stories simply because they matter to me. 

And every time I pick up a forgotten piece, I feel a little more like myself again.

This return is tender. It’s clumsy. It feels a little like being reborn fragile and uncertain, but full of hope.

And maybe that’s what healing is: coming home to yourself after a long absence and promising you’ll never leave again.