Tonight something finally broke open in me. Not in a falling apart way — in a clear way.
I have been bleeding for someone who watches me bleed and asks how much longer it will take. I lay next to him crying and he was annoyed. Annoyed. Not because he didn’t care — but because my pain was inconvenient. Because a partner who falls apart emotionally is not what he wants. And I have spent so long trying to be smaller, quieter, more manageable — trying to be the partner he could want — that I forgot I am a person who deserves to be held when she cries.
He will not commit to me. That is not my fault. I have to stop carrying it like it is.
I typed out texts tonight. To Sarah. To my mom. I told my mom I needed her to be strong for me because I couldn’t be. I didn’t send them yet. But I wrote them. And that means some part of me knows what I need and is reaching for it.
I don’t have strength right now. But maybe I don’t need to. Maybe that’s what morning is for. Maybe that’s what Sarah is for. Maybe that’s what my mom is for.
I can’t give ten more years to this. I can’t give ten more months. The question I have to sit with is not how do I fix this — it’s how do I find my way back to myself.
I think I already know the answer. I think I’ve known for a while.
There is something else I have been carrying that I haven’t let myself say out loud very often.
A while ago, when my family was visiting, Clay touched me while I was asleep. Sexually. I woke up to it. I don’t think anyone saw. But I saw. I felt it. And I have held the weight of that ever since — the resentment, the embarrassment, the way I tucked it away somewhere small inside me and kept going.
I want to say it clearly to myself tonight: I did not choose that. I was asleep. That was my body and I was not asked. That is not something I have to excuse or minimize or explain away because we were together. It was wrong.
The embarrassment was never mine to carry. I know that in my head. I am trying to let my heart believe it too.
I deserve to feel safe next to the person I sleep beside. I deserve to wake up the way I chose to fall asleep.
I am going to stop pretending that didn’t hurt me.
Tonight I tried to name what I was feeling and I couldn’t. It all felt unrelatable — like it was happening to someone else, like I was reading about a stranger.
But then I noticed my body. I was holding my phone and my neck and shoulders were tense. My core was braced. My legs were stuck out straight and stiff, my hips pushed forward. I was holding on with everything I had without even knowing it.
I let my feet go flat. I let my legs go soft. I breathed into my belly instead of my chest.
And I felt better.
My body has been on guard for a long time. It doesn’t know how to put it down yet. But tonight, for just a moment, I let it rest.
That is something. That is mine. Nobody can take that from me.