I’ve been sitting with the idea that I’ve never really been loved.

But that’s not the full truth.

There were glimmers.
Moments.
Half-decent people doing what they could.
A teacher who saw something in me.
A friend who gave me a lift home.
A therapist who stayed present when I cried.

Some of that might have been love — in small, passing ways.

But what I haven’t had is consistent, felt, emotionally safe love.
The kind that stays.
The kind that says, “I see you. I’m not leaving.”
The kind that doesn’t disappear when I stop performing or pleasing or holding everything together.

I think that’s what I’ve been grieving — not the total absence of love, but the absence of love that lasts.

And when I’ve brushed up against it — something that might have been real — I’ve pushed it away.
Because it felt unfamiliar.
Dangerous, even.
Like my body didn’t know how to let it in.

That’s not my fault.
It’s what happens when love is paired with inconsistency, control, or silence for too long.
The system gets confused.
Safety starts to feel suspicious.

And now I find myself trying to redefine what love even means.

Not based on what I was told.
Not based on what I begged for.
But based on what I need now.

Maybe love is:

  • Respect, without performance.
  • Curiosity, without judgment.
  • Presence, without pressure.
  • Steadiness, without conditions.

Maybe it doesn’t have to be dramatic or all-consuming.
Maybe it’s quiet.
Maybe it grows slowly.
Maybe I’ve missed it sometimes because I was looking for the wrong signs.

And maybe — just maybe — I’m not as far from it as I thought.
Because I’m starting to let in my own care.
My own reflection.
My own truth.

And that might be the first kind of love that actually stays.