The Love I No Longer Want to Earn

I keep returning to one question: how many times do we call something love because we have already become skilled at surviving it? That question followed me while writing. It sat beside me quietly. No drama. Just a small, stubborn truth asking to be noticed. There is a version of love that makes a person feel valuable because she is useful. She remembers everything. She carries the emotional groceries. She notices the change in everybody’s voice and adjusts herself before anyone has to ask. She becomes the shelter, then wonders why she is always standing in the rain. I know how easy it is to admire that woman. She looks strong. She is strong. But sometimes strength becomes the pretty name we give to self-abandonment because the honest name would require a change. Writing Bold As A Lion, I Fear No Evil stirred that tension in me. The space between knowing and doing. Between the body saying no and the mouth still trying to make the situation understandable. Between loving someone and realizing love does not automatically make a place safe enough to stay. I am sitting with the fact that the body is often the first honest witness. Before we find the language, something in us tightens. Something grows tired. Something stops feeling free. We may argue with it because the mind wants evidence, a clean story, a villain everybody will agree is wrong. But life is rarely that generous. Sometimes nobody is entirely cruel. Sometimes the love was real. Sometimes there were beautiful moments alongside the ones that asked us to disappear. That is what makes the truth difficult. We think leaving means denying everything good. It does not. We can honor what was and still admit what it could not become. What I want readers to know is that boundaries do not cancel tenderness. Saying no does not erase the love you gave. Choosing yourself does not mean you have become cold, bitter, or incapable of grace. It may mean you have finally included yourself in the care you offer so freely to everyone else. I am not interested in pretending this kind of becoming is neat. It can be lonely. It can make us question our own memory. It can feel like grief and relief arrived wearing the same coat. Still, I believe there is dignity in the quiet refusal. The unanswered call. The explanation we do not give for the tenth time. The moment we stop proving we deserve a place that keeps asking us to shrink. Maybe fearless love begins there. Not with a roar. With the soft decision to stop leaving ourselves behind.