Overbearing

    Hello. It’s that time of the year again.

    The kind that makes you feel a little softer, a little heavier, like your heart is remembering something your mind hasn’t quite caught up with.

    I don’t know about you, but for me, this season has a way of bringing back old habits, old faces, old wounds that I thought I’d already grown out of. And sometimes, if I’m not careful, I find myself slipping into the same roles—roles I never signed up for but somehow keep getting cast in.

    The friend who is always there when it’s easy to reach out. The comfort when no one else answers. The space-filler. The safe option. The “you’ll do for now.”

    But I’ve been thinking: I’m not your convenience.

I’m not the number you dial because everyone else is busy. I’m not the person you hold onto when your hands are too empty. I’m not here to be remembered only when remembering is simple.

    I’m a person. Am I?

    With feelings that ache. With a heart that bruises. With dreams that deserve more than being put on hold until you’re ready.

    Do you know what it feels like to be chosen out of habit, instead of intention? To be loved in fragments, but never fully? To be seen, but only when someone else needs something from you?

    It’s exhausting. It really is...

    It’s lonely in a way that’s hard to put into words. Like standing in a room full of people who know your name, but not your story.

    Some nights, it feels like I’m fading into the background of my own life. Like I’ve become more shadow than flesh, more ghost than person. Christina Perri once sang about being “the shell of a girl that I used to know well”—and I can’t help but feel that line sink into me. Because that’s exactly how it feels. Hollow. Present, but not alive in the way that matters.

    And the truth is, I want more.

    I want to be chosen on purpose, not because I’m there when no one else is. I want to be someone’s first thought, not their last resort. I want to matter—not when it’s convenient, but even when it’s hard, messy, complicated. Especially then.

    Because that’s how I love.

    When I care about someone, it’s never halfway. I don’t ration out my presence based on convenience. I stay. I listen. I show up, even when it’s inconvenient, even when it costs me something, even when no one else does. Not because it’s easy. But because it’s real.

      And yet, even showing up has been thrown back at me.
    I once told someone—out of my concern, out of my care—“Please stop pushing comfort if it’s not needed, it’s overbearing. It feels like you’re assuming I need support when I don’t. I’ll ask if I do, thank you for understanding.”

     But all I did was show up. All I did was offer myself in the only way I know how—by being there. And somehow, even that was made into something wrong, something too much.
    

    Do you know how exhausting it is to realize that even your love, your presence, your care—can be unwanted? To feel like no matter how carefully you step, you’re still stepping in the wrong place?

    It makes you start to question everything.
Maybe I am overbearing. Maybe I am too much. Maybe my way of caring is just another burden people secretly wish they didn’t have to carry.

    And that thought… it eats at me. Because if even my love feels like a mistake, then what’s left of me that’s worth keeping?

    And maybe that’s why I’ve felt so heavy lately. Felt like I'm dying inside.

    Because staying is natural to me—but I’ve realized I can’t keep staying in places where I’m only tolerated. I can’t keep holding space for people who don’t hold any for me.

    This time of year always reminds me of cycles—how seasons return, how old patterns sneak back in. But I’m learning that I don’t have to repeat the same story. I don’t have to be the one who is “good enough for now.”

    I deserve to be enough. Do I?

    Not just when the nights are long and lonely. Not just when the calendar turns and nostalgia kicks in. Not just when you need me.

    Always. Always?

    So this year, I’m choosing differently.

    I won’t let myself be the background character in someone else’s story. I won’t shrink myself to fit into someone’s convenience. I won’t be the almost, the option, the “maybe later.”

    I want to be here—for myself. For the people who truly see me. For the connections that don’t disappear when life gets busy.

    And if that means fewer people around me, then so be it.

Because I’d rather have a handful of souls who choose me, really choose me, than a crowd who only remembers me when it’s convenient.

    So here’s my reminder to you, too—if you’ve ever felt like a convenience in someone else’s life: you’re not.

    You’re not a placeholder. You’re not a backup plan. You’re not the “until something better comes along.”

    You are worthy of being chosen with both hands, with full heart, with no hesitation.

Not just now.

Not just sometimes.

But always.

    And I hope, one day, I can say those words to myself and believe them.

    Because right now… most days, I don’t.

    I try to tell myself I matter. That I deserve to be here. That I’m more than someone’s convenience. But there are nights when the silence is too loud, when my chest feels too heavy, and when the thought of disappearing seems easier than the weight of staying.

    I don’t say this because I want attention. I say it because it’s the truth I live with. There are parts of me that are tired—tired of being overlooked, tired of not being appreciated, tired of gaslighting myself into believing that it’s okay, that everything is fine with me, even when it’s not.

And yet, here I am. Still.

    Holding on by threads I can barely see. Breathing through nights that feel endless. Whispering to myself, “just one more day, maybe tomorrow will feel different.”

I don’t know if it will.

But I’m trying.

    And on those nights when the world feels empty, The Lonely plays in my head like a cruel lullaby. Its ghostly refrain wraps around me, reminding me of all the pieces of myself I’ve lost, all the echoes I’ve become. A shell. A shadow. A girl I used to know.

    I think about those words—how even my showing up could feel like too much to someone else—and suddenly I feel smaller than ever. Like even my love has nowhere to belong. Like I’m haunting the edges of lives I’ll never fully enter.

    Maybe survival isn’t pretty. Maybe it’s not brave. Maybe it’s just this—breathing through the ache, dragging yourself through the silence, and clinging to the faintest thread of hope that someday, somehow, things might feel lighter.

And if not… then at least I tried.

But if you listen closely—

in the silence after those words—

maybe you’ll hear it too.

The echo. The ghost.

The Lonely.