“is she ok?” “no she never is”

i wish i could sit you down and tell you why i am the way i am, let you examine my mind, soul, and heart as a whole, spread out like evidence on a table, and maybe you would understand better than i do why i turned out this way. i’m so sick of being sad, it feels like all i’ve ever known, like sadness was the first language i learned before i knew how to ask for anything else. i was raised with it, it tucked me in at night and whispered to me in the mornings, growing alongside me until it took on a name that looks like mine. i never really fit in as a kid, i learned early how to make myself smaller, quieter, easier to ignore. i was bullied enough to start believing there must be something wrong with me, something other people could see that i couldn’t fix. i didn’t have many friends, never had someone i could call my best friend and know they would say my name back without hesitation. i watched other people belong so easily, like it was instinct, like it was something you’re either born knowing how to do or you aren’t. i’ve never really been exceptional at anything, good but not great, capable but never remarkable enough to be chosen first. a jack of all trades, master of none, always hovering just below the line where people start to take you seriously. i learned how to survive, how to adapt, how to be useful, but not how to shine, and sometimes that feels worse, like being almost something is more painful than being nothing at all. i think that’s why i feel everything so deeply, why i cling, why i overthink, why i love like it might disappear if i loosen my grip. i’m always trying to prove that i’m worth staying for, worth understanding, that i’m more than the quiet kid who grew up sad and never quite learned how to be anything else. i don’t want pity, i just want someone to look at all of this, the mess, the softness, the years of loneliness, and say of course you are this way, how could you not be.