Maybe that’s why solitude matters. Not the performative kind where you call it “ working on yourself ” while secretly waiting for someone to arrive, but the kind that feels endless at first.

Because if you don’t meet your own soul before you meet another person’s, you’ll build a home in theirs and forget you ever had your own. You’ll confuse being wanted with being known . And that, more than loneliness, is the thing that will hollow you out.