Before I knew how to write my name, I knew how it felt to be unseen.
I don’t remember the warmth of arms wrapped around me, the safety of a gentle voice saying, “You’re enough.” Maybe if someone had held me at an age I still remember, I wouldn’t have spent so many years trying to earn something that is free. something that my peers get constantly. easily.
Love, in my world, was never unconditional. It was something to strive for, not something to receive. I learned early that praise came after good grades, after achievements, after I became someone people could be proud of. When I perform in front of people. When I’m a trophy worth showing. And even then, it never felt like love. It felt like relief, temporary, fleeting, and cold.
As I got older, the emptiness didn’t go away — it only grew louder. Especially when it came to the boys I loved. I clung to every guy who gave me a little attention, mistaking crumbs for comfort, confusing attraction for affection. I gave too much, too fast, because deep down I was starving for someone — anyone — to stay. Like how the song goes: it’s better than drinking alone. right?
It got to a point where I couldn’t tell who I really was anymore. I started to pretend. I became whoever I thought they wanted — quieter, cooler, more fun, less emotional. I wore versions of myself like masks, just to be loved for a little while. I learned what they liked what they hated even though they didn’t ask anything of me. Not even my favorite color. not even my name. Just to feel chosen. Just to feel anything.
But even in those moments, I knew it wasn’t real. I knew I was performing. And still, I kept doing it — because I didn’t know how to be loved as myself.
This hunger followed me into classrooms, sat beside me, lingering. waiting. My mind wasn’t failing — I was just too busy trying to survive an ache I never had the words for. How do you work when you feel so unloved you can barely breathe?
Some might say how can you throw away such education or dreams for love? for them i ask, have you ever felt cold at night waiting for the dark to consume you silently hoping someone would save you?
Have you ever been in a position where you’d exchange anything for the kind and genuine words of: “I love you”
Now, when I talk about success, I say it’s money, or ambition, or the life I’ve built with my own hands. But if I’m honest, none of it fills the space I’ve carried since I was a child. It always boils down to love — the love I never truly received, and the love I kept chasing in the wrong places.
But I’ve learned something, through the ache and the pretending and the silence: love doesn’t have to come from someone else first. It can begin here — with me. Because who can love me, if not myself?
So I’m unlearning the performance. I’m trying to believe I’m enough even when I’m not impressive, even when I’m alone. Because maybe the most important love story I’ll ever live is the one where I finally choose myself.
