It does hurt but it's alright ig, until you gave everything with pure heart and if that made you happy thn it's a win-win. Beautifully written, as always <333
siyaa, I really love that you let the happiness stay real too. 🥹🤍 I think that matters so much to me. Even if I gave the friendship more meaning than she did, the warmth I felt and the care I gave weren’t fake. I don’t want to look back at that version of myself and punish her just because she loved too brightly.
Maybe the gentler thing is to let both truths exist at once: I was genuinely happy, and I was also carrying more of the friendship than I realized. The love doesn’t become foolish just because it wasn’t returned in the same shape. Thank you for holding this one so softly, siyaa <333
Xiaobian, I love how you balanced the intense emotional confusion of that text conversation with such a graceful and necessary retrieval of your own self-respect at the end..🥰🫶🏻
Priyanshu, I love that you called it a retrieval of self-respect. 🥹🤍 It didn’t feel like becoming stronger all at once, or suddenly being free of everything I had felt. It was more like finding one small piece of myself in the place where I had left it while trying so hard to be special to her.
And I wanted that ending to stay gentle for that reason. I didn’t need to make her cruel, or make the closeness unreal, in order to stop measuring my worth by the place I held in her life. Maybe sometimes self-respect returns that quietly—without a victory, just with a little less need to prove that we mattered. 🫂
Xiaobian, I think that quiet return is what made the ending so powerful.. Self-respect doesn't always arrive through grand moments. It can simply be the day we no longer need someone else's choices to decide our own worth. Thank you for sharing these reflections with me. They always leave me with something to carry long after I've finished reading. 🫂🫶🏻
Priyanshu, that means more to me than you know. 🥹🤍 And I love the way you put this—that self-respect can arrive on an ordinary day, not as some grand declaration, but as the moment someone else’s choices stop having the final say over how we see ourselves.
Maybe that quietness is what I wanted most for the ending. Not to stop caring, not to erase what the friendship meant, just to return far enough to myself that being unchosen no longer had to mean being unworthy. And I think our conversations do something similar for me too—your words often come back to me long after the comment thread has gone quiet. That feels very precious, dear Priyanshu. 🫂
Xiaobian, I think that is the most beautiful part of self-respect.. it doesn't always announce itself. 🥹 Sometimes it simply appears in the way we start choosing ourselves again without needing to prove anything to anyone.
And I feel the same about our conversations. Your writing often opens doors to thoughts that deserve more time and care. Thank you for trusting me with these parts of your story, my dear. 🫂🫶🏻
It does hurt but it's alright ig, until you gave everything with pure heart and if that made you happy thn it's a win-win. Beautifully written, as always <333
siyaa, I really love that you let the happiness stay real too. 🥹🤍 I think that matters so much to me. Even if I gave the friendship more meaning than she did, the warmth I felt and the care I gave weren’t fake. I don’t want to look back at that version of myself and punish her just because she loved too brightly.
Maybe the gentler thing is to let both truths exist at once: I was genuinely happy, and I was also carrying more of the friendship than I realized. The love doesn’t become foolish just because it wasn’t returned in the same shape. Thank you for holding this one so softly, siyaa <333
Lot's of love to you<333
🩷🩷🥹
Xiaobian, I love how you balanced the intense emotional confusion of that text conversation with such a graceful and necessary retrieval of your own self-respect at the end..🥰🫶🏻
Priyanshu, I love that you called it a retrieval of self-respect. 🥹🤍 It didn’t feel like becoming stronger all at once, or suddenly being free of everything I had felt. It was more like finding one small piece of myself in the place where I had left it while trying so hard to be special to her.
And I wanted that ending to stay gentle for that reason. I didn’t need to make her cruel, or make the closeness unreal, in order to stop measuring my worth by the place I held in her life. Maybe sometimes self-respect returns that quietly—without a victory, just with a little less need to prove that we mattered. 🫂
Xiaobian, I think that quiet return is what made the ending so powerful.. Self-respect doesn't always arrive through grand moments. It can simply be the day we no longer need someone else's choices to decide our own worth. Thank you for sharing these reflections with me. They always leave me with something to carry long after I've finished reading. 🫂🫶🏻
Priyanshu, that means more to me than you know. 🥹🤍 And I love the way you put this—that self-respect can arrive on an ordinary day, not as some grand declaration, but as the moment someone else’s choices stop having the final say over how we see ourselves.
Maybe that quietness is what I wanted most for the ending. Not to stop caring, not to erase what the friendship meant, just to return far enough to myself that being unchosen no longer had to mean being unworthy. And I think our conversations do something similar for me too—your words often come back to me long after the comment thread has gone quiet. That feels very precious, dear Priyanshu. 🫂
Xiaobian, I think that is the most beautiful part of self-respect.. it doesn't always announce itself. 🥹 Sometimes it simply appears in the way we start choosing ourselves again without needing to prove anything to anyone.
And I feel the same about our conversations. Your writing often opens doors to thoughts that deserve more time and care. Thank you for trusting me with these parts of your story, my dear. 🫂🫶🏻