$$ April 2022 $$

We talk a lot about vulnerability, but it’s almost always the convenient kind. The kind where you deliberately choose to share the uncomfortable bits about your life, the one where you have template stories to share with strangers — abstracted just right, the one where there’s a routine, a rhythm to you feeling your feelings, and you fall apart a little bit, here and there. You know how and when and where you’ll be vulnerable. It’s nice, it makes you human. It’s relatable, even.

But then there’s a second kind. The one we don’t talk about, because we don’t know how to. The kind that’s about tearing up under a random streetlight in a city far, far away from home because you feel so full. The kind where someone comes up to you and asks you if you’re okay. The kind where you end up oversharing with strangers — not abstracted at all. The one where there’s no routine, no rhythm to you feeling your feelings, and you fall apart too much, too often. And you almost hate it because gosh! it’s so, so demanding. That’s the one I’ve been feeling these past few months. Full. So full. It’s like all the nerve endings in my body are exposed and they are picking up on every bit of stimuli. Like I am covered with open wounds and it hurts everywhere. All I can do is be in the maintenance mode, and that has to be enough for now.

It’s not convenient at all. It’s all the hassle I never wanted. And not just to me, it’s an inconvenience to my closest people — they are seeing me hurt, trying to relieve me of some of it, and having to have my back far more than ever before. I’ll come around it soon. I know. But in case you’re feeling something, anything similar, I am in it with you. And it’s comforting to know that you are in it with me, too. And I am certain something good will come out of this. In time.

<aside> 🥰 here is a little bit about me. and if you’d like you can buy me a coffee here.

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