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I sometimes wish I could easily point my finger at life or an external factor and say… yep, all my pain is because of this thing’s fault. But I cannot claim to be life’s victim. Some parts of my life were harsh, and some of the things I experienced were devastating, but never has hope been eroded to the point that there was no way out of the situation. Be it via healing in time, grieving the loss of something or someone, or an actual action to make things better again.

I think there is an important distinction between living and grieving bad things, and holding myself as a passive observer that has had no bearing on my own fate. I remember sometimes spinning scenarios in my head that played out something like a choose your own adventure multiverse thought experiment. What if I studied in another place? Stayed on the island? Decided not to get married or have a child? What if I ended up in Tennessee or Montana or Wisconsin or Massachusetts?

There is a cage one builds around oneself that has nothing to do with macro decisions like where to live or study or whether to marry or not. I think I realize that my microdecisions were more impactful of the outcome of my life so far than the big choices I made perhaps 4 or 5 times throughout my life. And though I know that as we grow older, there is much of one’s child that breaks through in every way possible, I now feel the weight of who I built myself to be more than ever.

All the times I chose to fawn over being authentic
All the times I tried to look cool to feel worthy
All the times I chose to hate myself body and soul
All the times I ran away instead of mending
All the times I hurt people because I felt I was not worthy of them
All the times I smiled and allowed people talk to me as an object
All the times I overfunctioned for the sake of “peace”
All the times I swallowed my own pain and illness to support another

And I realized that I wired myself so badly that if someone slapped a normal connection in my face, I’d choose to not trust it because there’s no way anyone can cherish me. Today I was shocked because my partner said his coworker chided him for letting me go outside on a chilly night to bring all the groceries alone as he sat comfortably inside. I cried when I heard he called me my partner’s “beautiful wife.” No one has ever called me a beautiful anything that didn’t want a hookup or a favor. I cry when I read romance because I’m in awe that two people at the same time care so much about each other’s wellbeing and it makes me regret all the little decisions I make to not stand up for my own needs and boundaries and still feel safe doing so. But that is the story I wove time and time again. That is how I made myself view the world.