i lied.

[u/Big-Cartographer6226]

i love that i’m not a heiress. i love that i’m not a housewife. i love that nothing in my life was handed to me. i love that everything i have has my fingerprints on it -- every bill, every scar, every little thing i built when no one came to save me.

i love making my own money. i love knowing that if i want something, i have to work for it. i love that i don’t owe anyone anything. i love knowing no one can say i’m indebted to them.

i love going home to an empty house. the silence. the freedom. the fact that no one is waiting for me, asking where i’ve been, needing an explanation for why i disappeared. i love knowing no one is looking for me. no one needing me.

i learned to do the hard things alone, too. the emergency room alone. driving myself home late at night. sitting through the waiting room until morning. going to follow-up appointments alone. and i tell myself i love that too -- never having to worry about being someone else’s worry.

and i love my intensity, when i let it show, because it keeps the half-hearted at a distance. maybe i love my detachment because it means no one gets close enough to hurt me twice.

i love who i became.

but i don’t love what it took to become her.

i don’t love the things that taught me not to need anyone. the things that made solitude feel safer than being loved. the things that made me so good at surviving on my own.

i’d be lying again if i said i don’t grieve the person i might have been if i’d never had to become her.

i lied.

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