A Life Lived in Edits

I’ve been living inside my own head for so long it doesn’t even feel like a place anymore… it feels like a battlefield. Every thought arrives armed. Every feeling comes in already bleeding. And if I’m not in there trying to quiet the noise, I’m out here bending myself into shapes that might make someone else stay, someone else soften, someone else comfortable, someone else choose me. I don’t even know what happiness feels like anymore… not in a real, embodied way. I can mimic it, perform it, put it on like makeup before I leave the house. But underneath, I feel hollow. Like a house after the furniture’s been removed… still standing, sure, but echoing. I’ve been surviving on autopilot, convincing myself that if I just make it through the day quietly enough, gently enough, maybe I won’t leave a mess behind when I’m gone. Maybe no one will have to grieve something that already felt halfway absent anyway.

Today, her office felt different. Cold. Not just temperature, but intentional. Like she was testing a different way in. The last few sessions had felt like sitting on the surface of the sun, warmth pressing in from every angle, almost suffocating in its own way. Today felt like stepping into something sterile, sharp, awake. I could tell she was waiting to see if I’d react, if the discomfort would make me speak. But I’ve been living in an apartment with no AC for two weeks now, Alabama heat and humidity clinging to everything, including me. I’ve learned how to exist in discomfort. I’ve learned how to sit in it without flinching. So I didn’t give her anything. Not the cold. Not the silence. Fifteen minutes passed like that… just the quiet stretching between us, thick and unbroken.

I studied her instead. The way she arranges her books like they’re meant to be seen more than read. I wonder if she’s actually opened them, or if they’re just props in this carefully curated version of safety. There’s a new photo behind her now, her family. Her kids turned away from the camera like even their joy is protected, like she knows better than to let the world fully see what she loves. Smart move. She looks different in that picture. Softer. Lighter. Like she belongs somewhere outside of this room. Like she has a life that isn’t built around holding other people’s broken pieces. She looks… happy. And I can’t decide if that comforts me or makes something inside me ache in a way I don’t have words for… because I can’t remember the last time I looked like that.

She eventually broke the silence with something small. Easter plans. It almost made me laugh, honestly. I’ve been unraveling quietly in front of her for how long now, and we’re still pretending I’m someone who plans holidays like everything is fine. But maybe that’s not her misunderstanding me… maybe that’s her offering me a door. A softer place to land if I don’t have it in me to go deeper today. I answered her politely, carefully. The version of me that knows how to keep things contained stepped forward and spoke for me. But she saw through it immediately. The distance. The refusal. Maybe she does know me, at least in the ways that matter inside this room.

And if I’m honest… I think that’s what hurts the most. The realization that the people who see me clearly are either gone… or sitting across from me with a clock ticking behind them, as long as that payment goes through. I catch myself thinking about it more than I want to admit. Who would come if I called right now? Not eventually. Not after they finished what they were doing. But immediately. Without question. Without hesitation. I don’t like where that question leads, so I shut it down the only way I know how… shake it out of my head like an etch a sketch, scramble the pieces before they can form something solid. Like if I don’t look directly at it, it can’t hurt me.

But it does. It always does.

I told her about the way I keep abandoning myself to keep everyone else comfortable. How I’ve gotten so good at adjusting that I barely notice I’m doing it anymore. I edit myself mid-sentence. I soften my needs before they can even be heard. I become easier to love, easier to manage, easier to stay with. And still… it’s not enough. It’s never enough. There’s always another version of me that would be better. Calmer. Less emotional. Less intense. Less… me. And I try. God, I try. I carve pieces off of myself and offer them up like proof that I’m willing to change, willing to meet them where they are. But somehow, the version I become still doesn’t land right. It’s like chasing a moving target I was never meant to hit. She tilted her head, that look she gets when she’s about to say something that will sit heavy in my chest long after I leave. “Why are you trying so hard to please everyone when people are never actually pleased?”

I stared her down, locking eyes with her like if I held the gaze long enough, I could outrun the answer. Like I could make it dissolve before it had the chance to land. There was something defiant in it, almost protective… like a cornered version of me stepping forward, arms crossed, daring her to keep going. But underneath that, there was something quieter. Something tired. Because the truth is, I knew exactly why. I just didn’t want to say it out loud. Saying it would make it real in a way I couldn’t undo. Because if I’m not trying to please them… then what am I left with? Everyone who has ever claimed to love me did so with a list of things to change to earn it.

So, who am I when I’m not adjusting, not anticipating, not editing myself mid-thought to make sure I don’t tip the scale too far in any direction? If I stop performing, if I stop softening the edges of who I am, people will finally see me clearly… and decide I’m not worth staying for. The unfiltered version of me is too intense, too emotional, too complicated to keep choosing. So, I keep trying. Keep shifting. Keep becoming whatever version feels safest in the moment… even when it costs me pieces of myself I don’t know how to get back.

And the worst part is… even when I do everything right, even when I twist myself into something unrecognizable just to meet someone where they are, there’s still this subtle shift. This almost imperceptible change in their energy where I can feel it… that it’s still not quite what they wanted. Like I got close, but not close enough. And then I’m left chasing a new version, a better version, a smaller version… until I don’t even remember what I looked like before I started trying to be everything they needed.

So, she’s right. They’re not pleased. Not really. Not fully. Not in any lasting way. And I think somewhere deep down, I know that. I just keep hoping that maybe if I get it just right, say the right thing, feel things only the acceptable amount, take up the right amount of space, someone will finally look at me and say, this version… this one is enough. 

But that moment never comes… and now I’m left standing here, smaller than I ever was before, wondering where all of me went.

I don’t know why I keep doing this. Why I keep shrinking myself to fit into spaces that were never built to hold me fully. Why I keep folding and bending until I’m barely recognizable, and then feel surprised when no one can see me clearly anymore. I make myself quiet and then ache when no one hears me. I make myself easy and then wonder why no one handles me with care. And maybe the hardest part… is realizing that somewhere along the way, I started believing them. That I am too much. That I should be less. That love is something I have to earn by becoming smaller.

But sitting there today, in that cold room, across from someone who wasn’t asking me to change… I felt something shift. Not enough to fix anything. Not enough to heal it. But enough to notice.

Maybe I was never meant to fit the mold. Maybe I am allowed to want to be held. Maybe one day I will be enough just as I am… What a ridiculous thought, though, right?