Tag: writing

Almost

There should be a word
for the kind of love that lingers
beneath the surface of something steady.
Not louder than friendship,
but just as present.
Unspoken, not because it’s fragile,
but because it’s sacred.

Every time we see each other,
it returns like muscle memory.
That hush between us.
The pull.
We don’t name it when it would be unkind to.
But it’s there.
It’s always there.

If he ever turned to me and said
it’s always been you,
I would not hesitate.
My whole self would soften into it.
I wouldn’t need to be asked twice.

But he doesn’t.
He chooses other lives.
Other women.
And each time,
I remind myself to understand.
To not ask why.
To not wonder if it’s something in me
that makes him look away.

Still, I would never want to take from him.
Never want to interrupt the good he’s tried to build.
Because the love I carry
was never born from wanting to possess.
Only ever from wanting him to be well.
Even if it’s without me.

He knows how I feel.
Always has.
And I know how he feels.
Even when he hides it behind timing
or circumstance
or someone else’s name.

Maybe one day
when all the other lives we built
have settled into memory,
we’ll find ourselves side by side again.
Maybe then,
on a quiet evening on a porch,
with stories between us,
he’ll look at me like that.

And if he does,
I will not look away.
I’ll let him see every part of me.
Even if it’s only for a breath.
Even if that breath
has to be enough.

Because my love
has never wavered.
It never will.

The Day I Saw Myself in the Future

A therapist once told me I was ‘passively suicidal’.
I wasn’t actively trying to die anymore, but I wasn’t really trying to live either. Just existing in the quietest way, moving through the days like smoke, ticking boxes, showing up only enough to keep going.

There was no vision, no reach. I wasn’t hoping for anything. I wasn’t growing. I wasn’t even wanting to.

I never made plans for the future. Not because I didn’t care about one, but because I genuinely couldn’t see myself in it. I didn’t believe I would be there. I wasn’t in the picture.

Then recently, someone asked me,
“What would make you quit your job?”

Without thinking, I said,
“Nothing. My only goal over the next 5 years is to find and build a home for my daughter and me”.

My voice cracked and I didn’t know why. I didn’t realise what I’d said until later. I hadn’t said anything about endings. For the first time in so long, I had a goal. A shape. A horizon.
A stretch of time that I was planning to be alive in.
I saw myself there.

Not just enduring, but building.

Not just surviving but choosing to stay.

That moment stays with me.

Now, when I talk about the future, my voice catches. It feels tender, fragile, like I’m speaking of something sacred. I want to see her grow. I want to meet the woman she becomes. I want to watch her shape the world and shape herself.

I want to build something so gentle and grounded that she never has to feel the way I once did.
I want her to know comfort like I knew ache. To feel home not as a place but a state of being. To never wonder whether she belongs.

Sometimes I worry.
That these words might be misread. That if my parents saw them, they might think I’m blaming them for the way I once felt. Saying they didn’t provide that for me.

But I’m not.
They loved me with everything they had.
Pain doesn’t always ask permission though. Sometimes it just arrives.

Now my reason to stay is almost 6 years old. She runs barefoot through my heart and paints the sky with her joy. She is my reason. My turning point.

But lately, very quietly, another reason has begun to emerge.

It’s not loud. It doesn’t demand much.
Just a whisper.

What if I lived for myself too?

Not just for her.
Not just to protect or provide.
For the woman I’m still becoming. For the dreams I buried before they even had a name. For the version of me I never thought I’d meet.

She saved me, but now I want to show up in the world. Not just for her, but with her.

Not from the sidelines. Not only as a witness.

As someone still alive in her own story.

The Unforgettable Essence of Real Love

I’ve always known I couldn’t settle. Not for comfort. Not for company. I don’t want to be with someone just to fill the space beside me.

I love love. The kind that pulses through your bones and makes the world spin softer. I won’t settle for anything less that the loud, aching, unapologetic kind of love. The kind you want to shout from the rooftops.

I’ve spent most of my life as a secret. Not hidden, exactly, just rarely fully seen. I connect with people deeply, in ways that sometimes shakes them. And thought I don’t always stay, I stay long enough to hold the space. To be there in the in between until they find the one who feels like home.

I love that.

The way hearts brush in passing. I don’t need forever, just those fleeting electric moments of being truly known.

Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between wanting to be loved and wanting to be wanted. Both ache, but they’re not the same.

I’ve stopped searching. When you’ve known real love, the kind that changes the shape of you, you understand it can’t be hunted. You can’t fabricate that spark, that thread between souls. It’s either there or it isn’t.

And I miss it.

I miss the unspoken pull. The static in the air. I remember what it felt like, stars filling my eyes, that ache in my stomach, the unmistaken knowing, the moment I walked into a room and felt;

There you are.

Fall for your friends, don’t date

Dating is one of the worst things I care to imagine.

You meet a stranger. You make small talk. You try to determine if there is a potential to spend your life together. With the explicit goal of figuring out whether or not you want to have a relationship with them.

It’s barbaric.

I’d much rather continue falling in and out of love with my friends.

They know me, I don’t need to pretend, or put on facades or question my every move.

In reality, I’m only pretending though.

For a small moment, my heart lies with them. I see all their beauty and their potential. Then, as quick as the wind flies past, it’s gone. I fall in love again. Not lingering long enough to become a casualty.

The Struggles of Corporate Life: Choosing Yourself

How I managed to find myself stuck in a corporate wheel I don’t know.

They tell you to climb the ladder and smile in meetings. Tone “it”, (being you), down so you don’t come across too much for the client. Always be agreeable, always be available. For a while I did just that. Yet, at some point, I found myself wondering; “Is this it?”

Sometimes I’ll even try to convince others, maybe even myself, that this is everything I ever dreamt of. Maybe it’s easier to believe that than to face the crushing weight of unmet desires. If I tell myself this is all there is, then if life doesn’t offer more, I’m protected from disappointment at least.

When I put my mind to something, I give it my all. Yet, I’m in a role where I’m not really heard. My efforts are seen but not valued. My workload is noticed but only with pity. People feel bad for me but no one seems interested in doing anything about it.

Even now, I feel the walls closing in. I start to notice other paths I could take. Yet, I hesitate. I feel guilty at the thought of moving forward. I don’t want to let anyone down or leave anyone else in difficulty.

What hurts the most though? No one else would hesitate to do what’s best for them.

So why is it that I still won’t choose myself?

Finding focus amidst chaos

I’m trying. Every day. My brain doesn’t stop running through everything. Writing lists, trying to keep my focus, trying to stay on top of everything.

It feels as if I can’t catch my breath but I’m not drowning, just swimming really hard. It’s like I can see land and I know I can make it. I just have to give it my all until then.

I can’t wait until I reach land.

A whisper of what could have been

I listen to them play, screams of “Dad!” and laughs ringing through the house. Hearing him teach her that sometimes it’s okay to laugh when someone falls and comfort her when she’s bumped her knee.

There’s no negative air between us, no more walking on eggshells, we just appreciate what both of us are doing for our child. She is the soul focus in our life.

6 years ago today I moved back to my parents home. It was never my family home as I’d never lived here. With both of my parents choosing careers that fortunately provided living accommodations, there had never really been a “family home” as such. Yet there I was, in a position I had never dreamed of being in, as I had no where else to turn. I had lost the home I believed I was building. I had lost my best friend, my partner. I was forced to return to a country I had believed I wanted to leave, had accepted I may never live in again, because I was so certain this was the first move to the rest of our lives.

I didn’t want to come back on my Dad’s birthday, I was worried I would taint the day. If you had told me in that moment that 6 years later we’d all be sitting around a table eating pizza together with our daughter I would have laughed in your face. I was broken coming home, my heart had never felt heavier, I’d spent the entire plane journey from Australia, all 1235 minutes of it crying to myself. Why had I not advocated for myself sooner? How dare I let anyone treat me the way they both had? Why wasn’t I good enough? What did she have that I didn’t? Why did’t he value me enough after 4 years to even try avoid hurting my feelings? Nothing had ever hurt me as much as that.

Now I sit and listen to them laugh. There are moments where I think what if things had been different and she’d been able to experience his love every day of her life, that’s what I mourn now. Not our relationship and what that would have meant, but what it could have been for her.