Pain isn’t proof you chose wrong, sometimes it’s evidence you chose yourself.

I have a hard time letting go.

Even when I know something isn’t meant for me, I cling to the version of my life where it did. My mind can list every logical reason to walk away, but my heart still drags its feet, convinced that loss is a sign of failure rather than evolution. There’s a particular anguish in knowing that something is right while feeling, down to the core, that it’s wrong.

I’ve let go of people I loved, jobs I wanted, and futures I crafted carefully in my head. And each time, I didn’t just lose the singular thing, I lost the entire world I attached to it. The evenings that never happened, the routines never settled into. The office I never walked into on my first day, outfit chosen, lunch spot already decided. We talk about heartbreak and disappointment like they’re only tied to real events, but often, we’re grieving the futures we imagined yet never lived. It’s the ‘almost’ that gets you.

It’s almost easier to make the decision that will change your life than living with the emotional consequences of making it. The decision itself can feel clean, sharp, empowering. But after, it’s dealing with the silence and the change where familiarity used to be. It’s day after day of feeling the absence, of late nights spent wondering if you misread something, if you were impatient, if you walked away from something rare instead of something wrong. You feel foolish for hurting over something you chose to release. We think pain means we made the wrong decision, but it doesn’t.

Letting go isn’t proof that we didn’t care, and hurting afterwards isn’t evidence that we should have stayed. You can know something isn’t right for you and still feel the sting of leaving it behind. That ache is just indication of how deeply you felt, how much you gave, and how much you believed in what could have been. We don’t grieve things that meant nothing. We grieve the things that mattered, even if they can’t move forward with us.

After a while, you’ll remember why you had to go. You’ll realise that absence isn’t the enemy, but stagnation is. And then, you’ll begin to look to the future. To really look, and encompass all the possibilities that come with it. You’ll realise that your letting go was just making space for something new, something better, something more suited for you.

There are always going to be things we desperately want to hold on to. Our minds can scream at us to let go, but our hearts adamantly refuse. Letting go of this one thing feels like leaving behind a part of your soul. Like if it were to be taken away from you, you would never be whole again. You wonder how you can survive without it. If it’s even possible.

But you forget you did it once before. And you can do it again – not because you don’t feel deeply, but because you do.

A reckoning with solitude, self-protection, and learning to be seen.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about what makes me feel safe.

When I think of safety, the obvious things spring to mind: money, food, shelter. But I can have all of those, and still feel unsafe. Is it love that brings me safety? Relationships? Friendships? They contribute to that feeling, but again, even with all that present, I can feel unsafe.

Throughout the years, I’ve found my sense of safety to be unstable. When it came to expressing myself to others, I preferred to stay hidden. When it came to letting others in, I was anxious that they would leave me. Still, I searched for the safety I craved in other people. I hoped they would be able to bring me that sense of inner safety I was unable to provide for myself. Unsurprisingly, they couldn’t.

It won’t come as a shock that the more I looked for safety in others, the less I found it in myself – in fact I kept myself hidden and accepted from others what I shouldn’t.

I didn’t understand that the thing I was looking for in other people had to first be created within myself. I didn’t realise it was something I could cultivate, nurture. Instead, I chased it everywhere, and naturally, it repelled the other way.

I wanted others to trust in me, to believe in me, to be there for me, to fix things for me, to validate me, when I was unable to myself. It’s not that I shouldn’t receive those things from other people, but more it shouldn’t be my sole source of those emotions.

Now, it’s like the pendulum has swung the other way. If you were to ask me where I feel safe, I’d say I feel safe in isolation. I feel safe when I’m alone, and I’m free to be myself, without judgement from others. When I’m in my bubble, safe from external factors.

But is that safety? Or is that fear? It feels safe, as I’m protecting myself from being vulnerable. I’m ‘safe’ from rejection, opinions, judgement. But it’s also hindering me from growing.

I say I feel safe when I’m alone. But I want to be seen. I want to be heard. I want to be understood. So, what if I place my sense of safety elsewhere? Because what if the things that make me feel ‘safe’ are actually holding me back?

I wonder what my sense of safety actually is, and how much of it is really fear.

I say safety must first be cultivated within myself. But what does that mean? Is it trust, is it confidence? Is it acceptance? I try to place where I can feel safe for myself, and I come up empty. Maybe it’s a combination of things.

Maybe it’s knowing that when things get tough, I’ll be able to handle it. When I start to doubt myself, I can bring myself back up. When I look for someone to believe in me, I can turn to myself. I can allow myself to fail and keep trying. I can allow myself to push the boundaries of what feels ‘safe’ and comfortable and be kind to myself when it takes time to adjust.

In the absence of material things, the only thing I have to come back to is myself. It’s both comforting and terrifying. But that’s the complexity of being human.