Safe > Love
For almost all my life, I have been searching for something I didn’t know the name for. I used to call it love. And maybe part of it was. But love without safety becomes survival. Love without safety becomes proving. Performing. Shrinking. Waiting. Hoping. Walking on eggshells while calling it commitment. I honestly realized recently, at almost 38 years old, that I don’t know if I have ever truly felt safe. Tears rolled down my face when I admitted that to myself because saying it out loud means I also have to admit something else: The things I went through really did happen. Not just the big moments. The quiet ones too. The moments where I learned to stay silent. The moments where my nervous system learned tension before tenderness. Where love felt unpredictable. Where being “too much” was used against me. Where I was made to question myself instead of feeling held by someone. I have spent so much of my life in survival mode that I for...
