I notice things I don’t always want to notice. Tiny things. A tone that slides a little too soft. A smile that doesn’t match the eyes. A pause that wasn’t there yesterday. I don’t look for these things. They just appear. And once they’re there, they don’t leave. I used to think this made me difficult or overly sensitive, but maybe it just means I’m awake. I’ve learned the hard way what it costs me when I ignore my own instincts.
I don’t mind quiet. I don’t mind distance. I don’t even mind secrets as long as they’re honest. What I can’t stand is the small twist in someone’s voice when they say something they don’t mean. That shift. That dishonesty. It sits in my stomach for days. I hate lies. I hate liars. Not dramatically. Just deeply. Quietly. Because it feels disrespectful. And because I can’t unknow what I’ve seen. And because I deserve more. Simple as that. I deserve more.
I don’t reveal everything about myself. Never. Only few people get to see the whole of me, and even they tend to misinterpret me. People think I share all of me all the time, but they mistake openness for honesty. They’re not the same. I play my cards close to my chest. I always have. Not to be manipulative, but because I trust slowly. Suspiciously. And sometimes I trust too quickly when I shouldn’t. There is no perfect logic to it. I read people well, but I still get surprised. And I hate surprises. They are scary. I like to think I’m emotionally intelligent. And yet I can be naive at the worst moments. Both can be true.
I protect people. Even when they don’t ask. Even when they shouldn’t need it. Sometimes I protect them from my own intensity. Sometimes from their own chaos. I used to argue everything. Now I let some things die quietly because they’re not worth the wound. I used to be impulsive and quick to react. I still am, just underneath a layer of restraint that people confuse with coldness. I think before I react and weigh my words carefully. My heart often beats too fast. My mind moves too quickly. No one sees that. They see the surface. They assume the surface is the whole story.
I am impatient. I am too strict with myself. I’m harder on myself than I admit, mostly because I know what I’m capable of doing wrong. I forgive too easily. I forget nothing. I want closeness but need space. I want connection but hate when someone reaches for me with hands that aren’t clean. I trust slowly but fully. I’m soft until I’m not. I’m suspicious even when I’m safe. I forgive things from people that I can’t reconcile in myself if I did the same. Contradictions everywhere. I stopped trying to make them fit.
And somewhere in all of that, there is a line I don’t cross: I don’t pretend. I don’t bend myself into shapes to make anyone more comfortable. Not anymore. I’m honest, but measured. I won’t use the truth to hurt unless someone pushes me into a corner. And even then, I don’t lash out. Not because I’m not passionate, but because some things happen for reasons I don’t always understand in the moment. What good does it do to argue something you don’t understand? I’d rather hold my ground quietly than fight blind. Some fights are not worth the wounds and the aftermath. And I respect people too much to hurt them on purpose. I won’t lie to make someone feel better either. There is a middle ground, not always obvious, but it is there.
If you asked me who I am to others, I wouldn’t know what to say. It depends on the day, the history, the context. People see versions of me. I see the whole thing; my whole self. And it is messy, and ugly sometimes. But it is mine.
There is one part of me that doesn’t shift with the rest, one part that holds everything together so I don’t disappear into pieces: integrity.
Not the loud kind.
The quiet kind.
The steady thread running through all my contradictions.
The part that keeps me aligned even when everything else in me pulls in different directions.
I am who I am because I was who I was. Think about it. You will understand that you are too.
Amor Fati.
reflections of an unquiet mind 