Learned to Hold

I once thought being strong meant being quiet.It turns out it often meant being afraid.I carried weight without naming it. I thought that was love.It kept me hidden from the people who mattered most. I “protected” others from truths I thought would hurt them. It made us strangers. I’m learning to say the truer thing…

🐾 𝑻𝒘𝒐 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 𝒕𝒐 𝒌𝒏𝒐𝒘 𝒊𝒇 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒘𝒂𝒏𝒕 𝒕𝒐 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆 𝒎𝒆:I don’t ask for reassurance often—but when it comes, it hits like a drug.Scratch me behind the ears—I’ll follow you around for hours. I’ve learned to be steady—after years of stumbling.I don’t need managing—but I do need respect.I carry what’s mine—some loads just took longer…

For the woman who’s loved a man before he was ready—I won’t pretend the end was all on me. But still—I wish I had been the man I am now, back then.I can’t go back.But I can be grateful for the part she played in helping me become the one I’ll be for someone else.

You do the cooking? I do the cooking?You do the laundry? I do the laundry?You brush the dog? I shave the cat? Just details. What I’m after is the woman whose company makes the doings feel like the main event. A best friend who turns a Tuesday at the stove into a highlight of my…

A funny thing happened to me a long time after my last breakup.⠀I did the thing you do… got one of those human-finding apps where you judge the next love of your life through a ceaseless stream of thumb-flickable faces.⠀So, I created a dating profile,and then I stepped back.I Looked at it.I realized…⠀…the man being…

I’m more of an eyes man than an ears man.It’s not the silence that gets to me.Some silences are connection.It’s the feeling of not being seen anymore that can ache.Is that when it lands for you, too—the missing, the quiet lack of being seen?