Some days, I don’t want advice.

I don’t want someone telling me that everything will be okay.

I don’t want to hear that I should be stronger, more patient, more understanding.

I don’t even want to talk.

I just want somewhere to put all the feelings I don’t know what to do with.

Because sometimes my heart feels too full.

Full of things I haven’t said.

Things I wanted to say but didn’t.

Things I said and wished I hadn’t.

Things I wish someone had noticed without me having to say them.

And I carry all of it around as if nobody can see how heavy it is.

I go about my day.

I laugh.

I answer messages.

I work.

I make plans.

I get excited about little things.

Sometimes I even forget that I’m hurting.

And then something small happens.

A sentence.

A tone.

A look.

A silence that lasts a little too long.

And suddenly, everything I had carefully pushed somewhere deep inside comes rushing back.

And I hate that.

I hate how one small moment can find every old wound I thought I had hidden well enough.

I hate how quickly I can go from being completely fine to sitting quietly somewhere, wondering why I suddenly feel like crying.

And the worst part?

I don’t always know what I’m crying about.

Maybe it’s today.

Maybe it’s yesterday.

Maybe it’s something from years ago that I never really got over.

Maybe it’s everything.

Maybe sometimes the heart doesn’t separate pain into neat little boxes the way the mind does.

Maybe it just remembers.

I think I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to be okay before I actually was.

I learned how to wipe my face and walk back into the room.

How to answer “What’s wrong?” with “Nothing.”

How to smile when I didn’t feel like smiling.

How to continue conversations while a completely different conversation was happening inside my head.

Nobody teaches you how exhausting that becomes.

Nobody tells you that pretending to be okay doesn’t make the hurt disappear.

It only teaches you how to hide it better.

And maybe that’s why sometimes I don’t even know how to ask for comfort anymore.

I don’t know how to say,

“Please don’t ask me to explain.”

“Please just sit here.”

“Please don’t make me feel silly for being hurt.”

“Please don’t tell me that someone else has it worse.”

“Please don’t make this smaller just because you don’t know how big it feels inside me.”

I wish I could say those things.

But instead, I usually say,

“I’m fine.”

And sometimes I almost believe myself.

Almost.

There are nights when I lie in bed and replay conversations that lasted only a few minutes.

Not because I want to.

Because my mind won’t let them go.

I think about what I should have said.

What I could have said.

Whether I misunderstood.

Whether I should have stayed quiet.

Whether I made too much of it.

Whether maybe I am the problem.

And then I get angry at myself for even thinking that.

Because why is my first instinct always to question myself?

Why do I so easily believe that maybe I was wrong for being hurt?

Why do I need permission to feel something that happened inside my own heart?

I don’t have an answer.

I just know I’m tired.

Not tired of life.

Just tired of carrying myself through certain days.

There is a difference.

Sometimes I want to put everything down for a little while.

The expectations.

The explanations.

The pretending.

The constant effort of making sure everyone around me is okay.

I want to stop being the person who can handle it.

Just for one evening.

I want someone to look at me and realize that I am not okay without making me prove it.

I want to be able to cry without feeling embarrassed.

I want to be quiet without someone assuming I’m angry.

I want to be happy without feeling like I have to protect that happiness from being taken away.

I want to be excited about something without that excitement being questioned.

I want to exist without constantly checking whether my existence is inconvenient to someone else.

Maybe that’s too much to ask.

Maybe it isn’t.

I don’t know anymore.

I only know that there are parts of me that have become very quiet.

Not because they disappeared.

Because they learned that being heard sometimes hurts more than being silent.

And I think that is what scares me the most.

Not that I will always be sad.

Not that I will always hurt.

But that one day, I might become so used to hiding everything that I won’t know how to be completely myself anywhere.

That I will become someone who automatically says “It’s okay” even when it isn’t.

Someone who laughs while hurting.

Someone who says “Don’t worry about me” when, secretly, they wish someone would.

Someone who keeps saying “I can handle it” until nobody remembers to ask whether they should have to.

I don’t want that.

I don’t want to become so good at surviving my feelings that I forget what it feels like to actually live them.

I want to feel things without being ashamed of them.

I want to be soft without being afraid.

I want to care without constantly preparing myself to be disappointed.

I want to love people without losing pieces of myself every time they hurt me.

And more than anything,

I want somewhere to put my heart when it gets tired.

Not a place where someone tells me how to fix it.

Not a place where someone tells me why I shouldn’t feel this way.

Just somewhere safe enough to set it down.

Even if it’s only for a little while.

Because maybe that’s all I’ve been asking for all along.

Not to be saved.

Not to be understood perfectly.

Not to have every hurt erased.

Just to have one place where I don’t have to pretend that carrying all of it is easy.

One place where I can finally say,

“This is heavy.”

And nobody asks me to prove it.