The Freedom in Saying it

I am a very emotional person, whether people think I am or not. I feel certain things very deeply. A word, a change in someone's behavior, a moment that perhaps seems insignificant to someone else can stay with me far longer than I would like. Strangely, there are other times when things that probably should affect me hardly seem to at all. I don't entirely understand why I am built that way, and maybe I never will. But as I move through life, and especially through the relationships that matter most to me, I am learning more about what to do with everything I feel.

For a long time, I became very good at keeping certain emotions to myself. I could feel something deeply and still carry on as though nothing was wrong. Sometimes I thought I was protecting myself. Other times I thought I was protecting someone else. And sometimes I simply knew that if I said exactly what I was feeling, I couldn't control what came next. Their reaction might not be what I wanted. The conversation might become uncomfortable. I might hear something I wasn't prepared to hear. So instead, I would process things internally, say part of what I felt, or sometimes say nothing at all.

There is a certain safety in that. If you don't say the whole thing, you don't have to experience the whole response.

But there is distance in it too.

I am beginning to understand that I cannot ask someone to know me fully while only showing them the parts of me I believe they will receive well. I cannot want someone to understand what is happening inside of me while simultaneously making them guess. And I cannot expect the deepest relationships in my life to continue becoming deeper if I am deciding, on my own, which parts of myself the other person is allowed to know.

I am sorry for the times I have done that, especially with the people I love most. Not because I intended to deceive them or shut them out. In many ways, I think I was trying to protect something. But I am learning that protection and closeness are not always the same thing. Sometimes, in trying so hard to protect a relationship from an uncomfortable moment, we create the very distance we were afraid of.

I used to think vulnerability was telling someone how I felt. I am beginning to understand that vulnerability is telling them without knowing what they will do with it.

That is much harder.

I can tell someone that something hurt me, but I cannot control whether they understand why. I can tell someone what I need, but I cannot control whether they are capable of giving it. I can tell someone that I am afraid, but I cannot demand the response that would make the fear disappear. I can tell someone how deeply I care for them, but I cannot control the depth at which they meet me.

All I can really control is whether I tell the truth.

And even then, I am learning that truth does not have to be harsh simply because it is honest. There is a difference between transparency and carelessness. I can choose my words without changing their meaning. I can allow myself time to understand what I am feeling without waiting until the feeling has disappeared. I can say, this hurt me, without trying to hurt someone in return. I can admit, I don't entirely understand why this is affecting me so much, but it is.

I am getting better at this, but I am still learning. There are still moments when my first instinct is to retreat inward, convince myself that I can work through something alone, or offer someone a smaller version of what I actually feel because the whole truth seems too vulnerable. The difference now is that I am beginning to notice when I do it. And more often, I am making the conscious choice to do something different.

What has surprised me most is what has happened because of that choice.

The more I have stopped trying to control how people receive me, the more deeply I have allowed them to actually know me. And the people I love most seem to be accepting me more, not less. Conversations become deeper. Relationships become more honest. I feel closer to people because I am no longer asking them to build a relationship with a carefully managed version of me.

There is something profoundly different about being accepted when you have actually allowed yourself to be seen.

Maybe that is one of the things relationships are here to teach us. Different people reveal different parts of ourselves. Some teach us patience. Some expose fears we did not realize we carried. Some teach us boundaries. Some show us how deeply we are capable of loving. And some make us realize that the way we once protected ourselves is no longer compatible with the kind of closeness we now want.

I don't think growth always looks like becoming less sensitive, less emotional, or less affected by things. Maybe sometimes growth is becoming better at understanding those emotions while they are happening and having the courage to share them before they become distance, resentment, withdrawal, or silence.

I don't know how every honest conversation will end. I am beginning to understand that I was never supposed to.

My responsibility is not to control what someone does with my truth. It is to offer it with kindness, especially to the people I love enough to want to be known by.

Maybe letting go, for me, looks a little like that.

Not feeling less.

Just hiding less.