There was a time when I knew I needed to leave my marriage, but I felt trapped by finances, responsibilities, and what my family would think. I was falling apart, crying in the bathroom almost every day. So I called her. And my friend just said: You don’t need a reason to listen to yourself.
Then she said, “You’ve been carrying so much for so long, even when you seem completely fine. You’ve spent your whole life trying to be who everyone needed you to be. None of those expectations are bad on their own, but a lot of them go against what you actually want. They sound like the right thing to do, so you’ve followed them for so long that eventually you stop questioning them. Even when you’re exhausted, you still feel like you need permission to stop. You need someone else to tell you it’s okay, to help you believe it’s okay to choose yourself. But listen — if something feels right to you, trust that. If something keeps hurting you, you don’t have to keep accepting it. Your health and happiness matter more than anything else. They matter to the people who love you. They matter to me too. Do you hear me?”
For a long time, I thought I understood what it meant to trust myself, to disappoint people, and to be loved without conditions. But I didn’t really understand any of it until that night.
