I often look at the women around me and wonder how they got to stay so soft. They speak without second-guessing themselves and trust people easily. They believe in sweetness as if it comes naturally, as if nobody ever made them earn it. They laugh, cry, fall in love, and fall apart, and it all looks open and unguarded, as if the world always let them simply be themselves. If I’m honest, sometimes I’m jealous. I grew up differently. At ten, I was told the pain would shape me, that the hurt would build character and make me stronger, as if strength were a fair trade for a childhood. What I needed was innocence and softness, and someone to tell me, “You don’t have to carry all of this.” Nobody said it. So I learned to carry it. I learned to predict, to protect myself, and to disappear.
Now I watch my friends move through the world with a lightness I can’t seem to find. I know they’ve had pain too. Theirs left their joy intact, and they love people without wondering each time whether they’re too much or not enough. Sometimes I feel like the bad one, bitter or broken, as if something in the way I see the world can’t be fixed. I know comparing is unfair, and I do it anyway. I wonder who I’d be if the damage could be undone, if I could love without looking over my shoulder or bracing for disappointment.
These days I live alone, and sometimes I feel lonely. My friends are back in Norman, and even from here, I still feel like I’m not soft enough. I’m asking what kind of love I’m meant for when I was built by things that should never have touched me, when the softness was wrung out of me before I had words for it. Perfect love is something I can’t even picture. This feeling has no ending, only questions that echo late into the night. What would it feel like to simply be met? What would it mean to love without defending myself? If nobody taught me to stay soft, can I still learn? I don’t know, and I keep asking.
