Before our feet touch the earth, our eyes have already wandered into someone else’s world. We didn’t notice when we stopped living and began watching others.

And I am so exhausted by this constant orbit around potential. This slow bleeding of meaning. A daily flirtation with who I am not, what I don’t have, and what I haven’t done.

And I have become a graveyard of personas. Restless in the presence of simple pleasures. Always terrified of settling. I used to think I was failing because I hadn’t arrived anywhere, but I’ve simply been lost in the contradiction of different maps, wandering too many paths.

The hunger to be everything was only ever a longing to be loved.

But you were always worthy.

Even as just one true, marvellous thing:

yourself .

—i know you’ll learn to live for yourself, amber.

What if I told you this hunger to endure everything, this ceaseless reaching, this need to feel something more, is not curiosity, but self-exile? Somewhere along the way, you began to believe that living meant becoming exceptional; being seen; being chosen. That it meant consuming everything the world offers.

But you were only ever meant to come... See more

But I have lost myself in a million other people. I’m no longer fluent in my own language. I’ve consumed so many dreams that weren’t mine, I don’t recognise the hunger of my own longing.

This isn’t freedom. It’s erosion. This is the slow disintegration of self beneath the illusion that we can be anything, everything, all at once.

They said choice would taste like freedom, but not that it’s an addictive sweetness. One that rots the stomach, until even our gut-instincts lose their sense of direction. We do not just suffer from an abundance of options, we suffer from a lack of commitment.

And I do not want more doors—I want to walk through one without looking back. I want to... See more

The world tells you that you can be anything, so you forget how to be yourself.

It shows you everything you can become, so you abandon what you already are.

It offers you a million lives; you choose none, and lose the one that was already yours.

And I am so exhausted by this constant orbit around potential. This slow bleeding of meaning. A daily flirtation with who I am not, what I don’t have, and what I haven’t done. Somewhere along the way, I stopped asking what I wanted and started asking what would look impressive. And what society worships shifts so quickly, that mentality becomes... See more