I am tired of keeping the peace for people who never seem concerned about what it costs me.
For years, I swallowed things because they were family.
Don't say anything. Don't make it awkward. Don't start trouble. Don't ruin the holiday. Don't cause drama.
So I didn't.
I smiled. I showed up. I dealt with my feelings privately because somehow being hurt was acceptable, but talking about being hurt would have made me the problem.
Eventually, people started mistaking my silence for a lack of emotion.
Cold. Unbothered. Emotionless.
The truth is almost the exact opposite.
I feel fucking everything.
I just stopped showing my emotions to people who made it unsafe to have them.
And somewhere along the way, I stopped trusting those emotions myself.
I had been told I was dramatic enough times that I started doing everyone else's work for them.
Something would hurt and, before I could even process why, I would dismiss myself.
You're being dramatic.
You're too sensitive.
You're overthinking it.
It isn't that serious.
Let it go.
So I would.
Until it came back.
And then I'd let it go again.
Until it came back again.
The same hurt. The same loneliness. The same feeling of being excluded, blamed, misunderstood, or held to a standard that didn't seem to apply to everyone else.
At some point, I have to ask myself:
If the same feelings keep returning, am I really being dramatic?
Or are they trying to tell me something?
Maybe I haven't always reacted perfectly. I'm sure there have been times when I overreacted. I've said things I regret. I've made mistakes. I've hurt people.
I'm human.
But being wrong sometimes doesn't mean I'm wrong every time.
And having big emotions doesn't make them imaginary.
I spent so much time asking whether I had the right to be hurt that I stopped asking why I kept getting hurt in the same places.
Especially this past year.
This past year has been fucking hard, and most people have absolutely no idea how hard.
There were days I was barely holding myself together and still did everything I was supposed to do. I handled responsibilities. I took care of people. I laughed. I made jokes. I showed up.
And when someone asked how I was?
I lied.
"I'm fine."
"I'm good."
"Just tired."
But the lying didn't start this year.
I've been doing it for years.
I've gotten very good at looking okay.
I've cried where nobody could see me and walked back into the room like nothing happened. I've stayed quiet when I wanted to scream. I've convinced myself I could handle things alone because asking someone else to help carry them felt more vulnerable than simply carrying them myself.
And sometimes, what I carried wasn't even mine.
I have taken the blame for things other people said or did because somehow the assumption landed on me.
There were times I could have corrected it.
I knew what actually happened.
I knew who actually said it.
And I stayed quiet anyway.
Because defending myself meant another argument. Another uncomfortable conversation. Another family problem.
So sometimes I just took the fucking blame.
I let myself be misunderstood because keeping the peace felt easier than defending myself.
And while I was doing that, I watched the rules change depending on who had broken them.
My mistakes could be remembered, dissected, and held against me.
Other people could do things that made my supposed infractions look like pebbles and somehow there was always an explanation.
"They didn't mean it."
"That's just how they are."
"They're going through something."
"Let it go."
There always seemed to be context for everyone else's behavior.
Mine came with a verdict.
I don't need anyone to pretend I've never done anything wrong.
I just wonder why I spent so much of my life believing I had to be nearly flawless to deserve the same grace everyone else received for simply being human.
And through all of this, I was still worrying about everyone else.
I notice who hasn't been included.
I make sure people know they're welcome.
I think about whether someone's feelings might be hurt.
I remember the little things.
I make room.
And I kept reaching.
That's another truth I've had a hard time admitting.
So many of my relationships existed because I kept them alive.
I called.
I texted.
I checked in.
I made plans.
I invited people over.
I hosted.
I found reasons for us to get together.
I kept trying to create connection because connection mattered to me.
But eventually I started noticing what happened when I stopped.
Nothing.
The phone didn't ring.
The message didn't come.
The plans weren't made.
If I didn't reach out first, sometimes we simply didn't talk.
If I didn't host something, I was rarely included in something smaller or more personal somewhere else. Maybe I'd see everyone at the big gathering, the holiday, the birthday, the event where everyone was invited.
But the little things?
The casual dinners.
The random evenings.
The "come over, we're just hanging out."
The moments where somebody simply thought, I want her here.
Those were different.
And that hurt.
Because there is something deeply lonely about realizing that you weren't maintaining relationships together.
You were maintaining them.
I would keep reaching until eventually I got tired or hurt enough to stop.
And then the relationship would die exactly where I left it.
No one picked it up.
No one came looking for me.
No one seemed to wonder why I had gotten quiet.
And maybe that's when I started understanding that some of the relationships I was grieving weren't relationships I had suddenly lost.
They were relationships I had been carrying by myself for a very long time.
That's a difficult thing to admit about people you love.
Because I don't want anyone to chase me.
I don't need constant attention.
I don't expect invitations to everything.
I don't need someone to prove they love me every five minutes.
I just don't want to be solely responsible for keeping a relationship alive.
I want to know that if I stop reaching for a minute, someone will reach back.
I want to know that my presence occurs to someone without me arranging it myself.
I want to be invited into someone's life instead of always being the person opening mine.
Because somehow, the person constantly checking that nobody else is standing outside the circle keeps ending up outside of it herself.
I know what it's like to find out everyone got together without me.
I know what it's like to realize I wasn't thought of.
And I know what it's like to get the invitation that feels like it only came because someone realized I would eventually find out.
Honestly, sometimes the pity invitation hurts more.
I don't want to be included because someone feels guilty.
I want to be wanted.
Especially by family.
I have spent years making myself smaller to keep relationships intact. Letting things go without apologies. Protecting people from my pain. Protecting gatherings from uncomfortable conversations. Protecting people who hurt me from knowing exactly how badly they hurt me.
I even protected people from consequences by carrying blame that belonged to them.
And after all of that protecting, somehow I became the person everyone thought didn't care.
I care.
That's the fucking problem.
I care so much that I have repeatedly abandoned myself to preserve relationships with other people.
And I don't want to do that anymore.
I'm tired of being guilty until proven innocent.
I'm tired of carrying things that were never mine.
I'm tired of watching mountains receive grace while my pebbles are treated like boulders.
I'm tired of feeling optional to people I have treated like priorities.
I'm tired of being the only person keeping relationships on life support and then blaming myself when they die the moment I take my hands off them.
And I'm tired of calling myself dramatic every time one of those things hurts.
Maybe the question isn't: "Am I being dramatic?"
Maybe the question is: "Why does this keep hurting?"
And maybe I finally owe myself enough respect to listen to the answer.
I think I need to find my people.
Maybe they won't necessarily share my blood.
Maybe they'll just be the people who think of me.
Who call.
Who invite me the first time.
Who ask what happened before deciding it must have been me.
Who give me the same benefit of the doubt they give everyone else.
Who let me make a mistake without turning it into a definition of my character.
Who can hear "that hurt me" without treating it like an accusation they need to defend themselves against.
Who don't always wait for me to reach first.
I don't need a huge circle.
I just want a real one.
I want people who look around and notice when I'm not there.
People who actually want me in the picture instead of remembering me after it has already been taken.
People who sometimes open their door to me instead of always waiting for me to open mine.
And maybe finding those people requires me to stop trying so hard to earn a place with people who have repeatedly made me feel optional.
Walking away doesn't mean I never loved them.
It doesn't mean none of it mattered.
It doesn't even mean I'm angry.
It just means I am finally starting to understand that history isn't obligation, blood isn't automatically safety, and endurance isn't the same thing as love.
I have tried.
I have forgiven.
I have made room.
I have reached out.
I have invited.
I have hosted.
I have stayed quiet.
I have spent years saying I'm fine when I wasn't.
I'm not interested in doing that anymore.
Maybe every feeling I have isn't perfectly rational. Maybe sometimes I really am dramatic.
But when the same hurt keeps finding its way back to me year after year, I'm done automatically assuming the problem is that I feel it.
And when a relationship disappears the moment I stop doing all the work, maybe I need to stop calling that a failure on my part too.
I was quiet for a very long time because I thought silence was keeping the peace.
I kept reaching for a very long time because I thought effort could keep people close.
Maybe now I need to see what happens when I stop doing both.
Not as a test.
Not to punish anyone.
Not to see who "cares enough" to come chasing after me.
Just because I am tired.
And because I want relationships that can survive without me carrying them alone.
I think I'm finally ready to make room for those instead.