sometimes i feel like my whole life is one long explanation. like i’m constantly clarifying, backspacing, rephrasing, over-explaining just so someone might finally, maybe, get me. i want to be understood in the way artists dream of being not just seen, but felt.
and i know that sounds dramatic. i’ve been told that my whole life: "you’re too sensitive," "you take things too personally," "you think too much." but maybe the truth is i do think too much. maybe i need people to understand the why behind the way i move through the world. and that need is not always pretty. sometimes, it’s just… exhausting.
there’s a kind of grief that comes from constantly being misread. when you say something with softness and someone hears it as weakness. when you’re joking but they think you’re serious. when your silence is about protection but they read it as cold. and suddenly you're explaining again no, i didn’t mean it like that. no, i wasn’t mad. no, i wasn’t ignoring you. and now your heart is spilling all over the place, again, trying to clean up a mess it didn’t even make.
in friendships, it’s this push-pull between wanting closeness and being terrified you’re too much. so you shrink. you speak in careful tones. you draft messages six times before sending them. you try to make your emotions digestible, palatable. but something gets lost in translation. you’re never quite enough or you’re always too intense. and either way, you leave the conversation more tired than when you entered it.
i think a part of me learned that being understood was a kind of safety. like, if they really got me, they wouldn’t leave. they wouldn’t hurt me. but that belief turned into this constant performing. like i’m auditioning for the role of “acceptable version of me” in every room i enter.
i want to stop performing. i want to sit across from someone and say, this is how my brain works. this is how my heart aches. i want them to hear the pause in my voice and know that i’m trying not to cry. i want to stop translating myself just to be legible.
and the truth is, the people who are meant to get me... they won’t need subtitles. they won’t flinch at the way i say too much, or feel too big, or spiral sometimes. they’ll just sit beside me, in the mess, and say, "i’m here. i get it."
but until then, i’m trying to unlearn the hustle of constantly explaining myself. i’m trying to believe that i don’t need to be understood to be real. that i can exist in confusion and contradiction and still be worthy of love.
some days that feels impossible. other days, it feels like freedom.
soft takeaways for the heart
you are not hard to love just not everyone speaks your language
needing to be understood is human, but not being understood doesn't make your feelings invalid
the people who are meant for you will never need you to shrink to be loved
you can stop auditioning, your existence is already enough
you’re allowed to rest, even when no one gets it
being misunderstood doesn’t make you wrong
such beautiful writing - its hard to imagine someone couldn't get ya in any way