Jaanuu
Favoured Frenzy
These insecurities have lived within me for a long time. They still do. Somewhere along the way, I learned to look for validation instead of learning how to accept myself.
I try to notice the faint flicker of excitement in others’ eyes when they look at me, but I fail to feel it within myself. I have been insecure about everything, my shape, my thin frame, my body, my skin, every small detail from my lips to my toes, and even my sound.
A single compliment can lift me so high that I almost believe it. And yet, a passing remark, even a careless joke about how lean I am, stays. I laugh in that moment, as if it means nothing. But later, in the quiet of the night, those words return, heavier, sharper, and I find myself breaking in silence. (Ironic, isn’t it, that I fell for someone whose way of loving is to mock, to joke about the very things that break me.)
I keep telling myself I am strong. But strength feels like a word I repeat more than something I truly can hold. Sometimes, it all brings me back to the people who left. To the quiet accusation that maybe I was never enough to make them stay. That I lacked something essential, something others seem to have so effortlessly. And it breaks me again.
There is another voice within me, one that does not comfort, only blames.For everything. The other day, I spoke to someone I still love, even as I try to let go. And I said,
“I still love you, but I don’t know how to show it the way you want. I know I should try harder, but I just… can’t.”
He laughed. A simple laugh, but it stayed with me like a thorn lodged somewhere deep.
“Just put in the effort,” he said. “What’s so hard about that?”
In that moment, it felt like something inside me gave up entirely. Like I had already bled out in ways no one could see.
How do you explain a heaviness that has no clear shape? How do you make someone understand a battle that even you cannot name?
At the end of it all,
I am left wondering if I am simply this
a complicated, conflicted person,
someone who reaches for people when she needs them
and retreats the moment she cannot bear herself.
~Jaanu
I try to notice the faint flicker of excitement in others’ eyes when they look at me, but I fail to feel it within myself. I have been insecure about everything, my shape, my thin frame, my body, my skin, every small detail from my lips to my toes, and even my sound.
A single compliment can lift me so high that I almost believe it. And yet, a passing remark, even a careless joke about how lean I am, stays. I laugh in that moment, as if it means nothing. But later, in the quiet of the night, those words return, heavier, sharper, and I find myself breaking in silence. (Ironic, isn’t it, that I fell for someone whose way of loving is to mock, to joke about the very things that break me.)
I keep telling myself I am strong. But strength feels like a word I repeat more than something I truly can hold. Sometimes, it all brings me back to the people who left. To the quiet accusation that maybe I was never enough to make them stay. That I lacked something essential, something others seem to have so effortlessly. And it breaks me again.
There is another voice within me, one that does not comfort, only blames.For everything. The other day, I spoke to someone I still love, even as I try to let go. And I said,
“I still love you, but I don’t know how to show it the way you want. I know I should try harder, but I just… can’t.”
He laughed. A simple laugh, but it stayed with me like a thorn lodged somewhere deep.
“Just put in the effort,” he said. “What’s so hard about that?”
In that moment, it felt like something inside me gave up entirely. Like I had already bled out in ways no one could see.
How do you explain a heaviness that has no clear shape? How do you make someone understand a battle that even you cannot name?
At the end of it all,
I am left wondering if I am simply this
a complicated, conflicted person,
someone who reaches for people when she needs them
and retreats the moment she cannot bear herself.
~Jaanu