I wasn't always like this
I wasn't like this.... I wasn’t always the girl who pulls back to protect her peace. I wasn’t always the one who kept certain parts of herself guarded. The one who loved quietly, who cared deeply but on her own terms. The one who now sets boundaries even in friendships. No, this version of me was shaped by life. Shaped by experiences I never asked for. Shaped by being misunderstood more times than I can count. Shaped by the way I used to give and give, until I was left empty, confused, and quietly hurting. Most people don’t know that part. They see me now a little distant sometimes, a little slower to trust, a little quieter when something hurts and they think I’m cold or uninterested. That I’ve built walls. That I don’t care the way they expect me to. But what they don’t see… is everything I’ve survived. They don’t know about the friendships that slowly drained me, the people who only came close when they needed something, the times I tried to express ...