I’m tired. Not the kind of tired sleep fixes. The kind that comes from loving people and getting nothing back, or getting something back and watching it disappear completely anyway. That kind of tired that sits on your chest and never leaves.
And somewhere in that tiredness, a strange thing happened. I started acting like I didn’t want love anymore.
It’s not that desires goes away. It’s that the fear gets louder than the desires, so you learn to talk over both of them with a straight face and make jokes, “nah, I’m good actually”.
It’s not that I stopped believing in love. It’s that I ran out of energy for the version of it that keeps hurting me. The late nights spent decoding texts.
The hope you build up before even you know someone deserves it.
You do that enough times and something in you says, not again. Not because you don’t want it. Because you don’t know if you can survive wanting it and losing it one more time.
So you build a face. Chill. Unbothered. “I’m not really looking for anything right now.” And it’s not even a full lie, because part of you means it. But the bigger part of you is just tired, and scared, and hoping someone proves it’s worth trying again anyway.
I want to say clearly, because I think it gets missed: acting like you don’t have a heart is not the same as not having one. It’s just fear wearing a disguise. Convincing enough that sometimes even you believe it.
But underneath that there’s usually someone who got hurt in a very specific, very personal way, and never really talked about it. Someone who wants to be chosen so badly that it feels safer to act like they don’t want to be chosen at all.
I think the fear is actually proof the wanting is still there. You don’t get scared of losing something you don’t care about.
But sometimes it’s just heartbreak in disguise, still trying to protect you from something that already happened.
I don’t have this figured out. I still flinch sometimes. I still catch myself pulling back before I even know if I need to. But I’ve stopped pretending that means I’m done wanting love. I’m not done. I don’t think anyone really is.
You can be scared and still want it. You can be tired and still show up. You can protect yourself a little without disappearing completely. The goal was never to stop feeling. It was just to survive feeling long enough to try again.
So if you’re scared right now, good, that means it still matters to you.
Don’t let the fear convince you to fake not having a heart.
You have one.
It’s just tired. Let it rest, not disappear.
