https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_krKnFhgUg

"I am no longer silencing my truth to keep others comfortable."

I will only know the importance of: 333

Gratitude For Kindness

When you bleed your heart and soul out on to the page, who actually picks up the page to read it?

April was full in ways I'm still processing, and in ways I want to hold onto tightly before they slip past. I'm writing this as a reminder to myself to look at what's actually here in front of me. And more importantly, who is actually here.

What I want to sit with today are the friendships I've been quietly building at work. In the grand scope of a difficult season, you'd think "colleagues" would be a footnote. But they aren't. They've become the fuel. They give me strength on the days I arrive already depleted and already bracing for impact.

There is a subtle truth I'm finally leaning into that the energy you put out is mirrored back to you through the people you attract. Your relationships are a reflection of who you are becoming. That's both comforting and confronting. It asks you to take ownership of your circle; to ask what you're projecting, what you're inviting in, and whether you're showing up as the version of yourself you actually want to be.

When I look at the friendships that have emerged this year, I see people who are warm, real, and refreshingly unpolished. These are people who will sit with you in the "hard thing" rather than rushing to dismiss or minimize it. They notice when you're down before you do.

Getting here wasn't entirely smooth. For a long time, I was defending myself, not always outwardly, but internally too. I had developed a kind of armor that becomes second nature to protect yourself before there's even a threat, especially when trust has been broken in the past.

Armor is a paradox. It protects you from being hurt, but it also ensures you can't be touched. It keeps out the pain, but it starves you of the light.

I'm learning that standing your ground and opening your heart aren't opposites. You can hold your values firmly, refuse to shrink just to make someone else comfortable, and still be soft. In fact, you can only truly be open once you know exactly where you stand. Otherwise, you aren't being open, you're just being unguarded.

I think I value the way my colleagues see me so much because it is so drastically different from the version of me I've often felt forced to defend elsewhere. It is draining to offer your heart or a simple truth, only to have it received as a harsh critique; to watch someone you love transform your honesty into a reason to be unkind. It makes you start to believe you are too much or too critical.

There is a specific, healing power in being witnessed. It's Andrew choosing to sit down, look me in the eye, and offer the rare gift of his undivided attention. It's Jim explaining every detail of his thought process during maintenance, sharing his world with me, because he knows I want to hear it. It's the way Laura notices the things most people walk past and hurries over to help. These aren't just "work interactions"; they are witnesses.

For a long time, I operated under the assumption that I needed to have things sorted before I let people in. I thought I needed to present a version of myself that was already "capable." But that is exhausting. It's lonely. And it keeps you at exactly the distance from people that you're secretly hoping they'll close.

I'm entering a season now where I want to invest my energy differently. I want to build, not just maintain. I want friendships that make me feel more like myself, not less so. We don't celebrate enough the underrated miracle of finding someone who gets you.

Accepting help isn't weakness. Letting yourself be held is not a failure of self-sufficiency. It's just being human. None of us were meant to carry everything alone.

I believe, with more conviction than I usually admit, that the right people are findable. When you stop performing and start being real, when you speak what's true and stop dimming yourself down to fit where you don't belong, the mirror starts to shift. The people who were always meant to find you finally can.

Don't concern yourself with the connections fading into the background. Focus on where the warmth actually is. Lean into the ones who celebrate your growth rather than feel threatened by it.

I used to think being known was something that just happened to you, a coincidence of circumstance. Now I think it's something you have to participate in. You have to put the real thing down on the page, or across the table, and trust that the right person will pick it up. Some won't... but some will.