Letting Yourself Be Misunderstood
I often move to correct things that are only slightly wrong. Not big misunderstandings. The casual assumptions. The half-accurate summaries people make when they’re trying to be kind, or efficient, or just ready to move on. The moments where someone thinks they understand what I mean, and I can feel it’s close enough, but not…
What Happens When You Stop Trying to Explain Yourself
I’ve been noticing how often I explain myself after the moment has already passed. Not always out loud. Sometimes it happens later, alone, when nothing is at stake anymore and I’m still trying to fix the exchange retroactively, like if I could just phrase it better now, the earlier version would somehow stop bothering me.…
What You Do When No One Is Watching
I’ve been paying attention to what I do when no one is watching. Not as a self-improvement project, and not as a way of sorting myself into categories. Just noticing, the way certain things become visible once I stop trying to manage them or turn them into a lesson. There is a version of me…
When Nothing Moves
There is a particular kind of discomfort that shows up when nothing is obviously wrong, but nothing is clearly right either. Life is functioning in the ordinary ways and I am doing what I am supposed to do, I show up where I need to show up. From the outside, it might even look like…
The Fix-It Reflex
I have a reflex I don’t love. When someone tells me they’re struggling, I want to help them move. I want to find the handle, grab it, and pull them toward something lighter. I do this more often than I’d like to admit. Someone says something heavy and my brain starts drafting a response while…
Stillness Feels too Loud
Some days, the stillness feels too loud. Not quite sad or lost. Just off in a way that’s hard to name. I scroll past other people’s momentum and feel that familiar pinch of comparison, the quiet suspicion that something is wrong with me because I can’t seem to move. It’s easy to call it stuck.…