It was a rough piece, despite the time I spent obsessively ruminating on it.

It was the best start for me, because I got an impressive momentum for a first publication on an account with almost 0 followers, on a platform I hadn’t even had the time to familiarize with.

The articles and projects that followed didn’t trigger the same effect, but my growth on this platform has been steady since then and I have been learning a lot from my experience on Substack and that of other marvellous readers in this community. I won’t lie to you, I have also been doing all the visibility work: calculating best publishing time for engagement, linking my posts below other writers’ notes, commenting and restacking from bigger accounts, creating the Pinterest blog to drive traffic to my page, even reaching out for collaboration with some writers.

And yet, two months later my Substack has not reached the goal I was promised by all the ‘gurus’ up here. My art still hasn’t paid a single drop of my water bill and my publications are yet to properly take off.

For the first time in two months, I sensed some frustration brewing underneath the excitement that originally made me commit to akaDANIELLE and The Unsolicited Lecture. It is also a pretty difficult to fit this commitment in my agenda, since I have a full-time job that drains me mentally and does not give me a particular sense of fulfillment, a gym routine I already struggle to stick to, a garden of beautiful relationships to tend to, a house to keep clean and running, and somehow I also managed to volunteer to work for a no profit organization. What was I thinking?

After a couple of days of intense pondering on the subject, I decided I still felt the urge to make my Substack space happen. So don’t worry, I am not shutting akaDANIELLE down yet. But what went wrong then after barely two months to challenge my determination? Easy: I wasn’t doing it on my terms.

So I made a list of what I have been doing wrong this whole time:

• I was under my own pressure

The first mistake I made was in the attitude towards my project. I wanted it to happen so bad I forgot it can’t happen overnight. I wanted my Substack to become performative right away, and most importantly I blamed myself for not putting enough effort to make it happen. I just couldn’t see that I was doing everything I could and that while the growth was slow, it was also getting visibly steadier. I didn’t take time to actually experiment, learn, and browse for new concepts and inspiration. I put myself under pressure as if I was running a company as a CEO and I was letting it fail, but I was running a one-woman-show that started from scratch.

• I prioritized discoverably over the actual people

Discoverability is important, but Substack is one of the few cases where it is not everything. As much as I have been maximizing this aspect of my publications, it didn’t bring any significant increase in traffic. I understand now that the price of discoverability is becoming unoriginal. People want realness, and you can’t possibly trade it for predictability. The number of subscribers or likes you have says a lot about your popularity or the work you have put behind it under a marketing point of view, but the quality of your community is a game-changer in all aspects of life. Plus, Substack is a community of writers and readers: both find comfort in the rough and genuine. This is what is worth discovering here.

• I was doing ‘engagement’ all wrong

Almost a month ago, I found an article that covered the same exact topic I was elaborating in an upcoming publication, so I erased it completely and never thought about it again. My activity as a reader on Substack wasn’t bringing any added value to my presence as a writer. I call it “degrading engagement”, when instead of letting yourself be inspired you bring yourself down by comparing your journey to the one of others.

Instead of letting that read stimulate my thinking and maybe find the value in my particular angle I was going to add to the topic, I suddenly felt like my work was useless and wouldn’t make a particular impact on my readers. But if I change perspective, I can reach a different conclusion: mine could be the first article that somebody bumps into about that topic. Why would I deprive myself of the opportunity to express my viewpoint? Who says it doesn’t add anything to the discussion?

• I fell prey to the ‘first-book syndrome’

I once read in a random Instagram post this formula to describe the anxiety of an author to contain the whole word into a single piece. I too have fallen into this trap of the creative process. When most articles about being successful on Substack mention “finding your niche”, I thought it a limiting concept. I didn’t understand why I had to narrow it down to three or four key interests and adjust my writing accordingly.

What the first-time writers get wrong is the idea that everything has to be blatant, while a single story can contain multiple meanings, not only for the writer but especially for the reader. In the end, we know that our inspiration and expertise come from well-defined sources; this is not a limit, but a lighthouse. A good piece should always spark an avalanche of comments, and it can’t do that if you have included the whole world into one article. Not to mention how little strategical it is: it’s true that our attention spans are already reduced to the bare minimum, but I challenge you to stay focused even for 2 minutes when the person you are talking to is changing topics and adding adjacent information all the time. The objective of every writer should be to convey a credible and relatable message, and to leave the reader with a sense of closure and appreciation for your creative product. The whole world is already contained in your reasoning: let it reveal itself through the lines.

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• I was trying to wear two linguistic feet in one writing shoe

I also have a very case-specific circumstance to deal with: I don’t come from an anglophone country. I grew up speaking Italian, I studied in Italian for the biggest part of my educational years, and most of my early writings are in Italian. However, since I started dreaming of my Substack space, I could only imagine it happening in English. After all, it is the language through which I receive most information that I end up wanting to write about (either books, social media, TV series, or movies) and it’s the language I speak and think in for almost 8 hours each day at work. Also, I was aware that the biggest slice of the audience would have come from the US and UK.

Som the dream to combine both my linguistic souls into my profile and feed is not going to become a strong point of my project anytime soon; actually, it has proven quite detrimental. The Substack algorithm still needs some fine-tuning, especially facing an increase in its popularity and traffic: If I like three posts from the Italian Substack in a row, then I totally lose the American and British Substack on my feed. I can’t seem to be able to build a hybrid community, which highly discourages any projects in Italian. Besides,the two communities behave very differently on the platform, and as much as I have tried to customize my growth strategy to get relevant for both, I ended up losing time that would be better deployed writing or reading.

Now, it’s not like I don’t have a plan to reclaim the joy that I banished from my writing activity hoping to receive some sense of success in return. So, here is my list of to do’s to always make sure that enjoyment is calculated into the equation.

Change doesn’t always come in an “how-to” format

What kind of Substack writer would I be if I didn’t promise any change in your lives? No really, this is what every single “how-to” wants you to do to sell your product on Substack.

My mistake was thinking that change can be brought forward only by a statement so evident you would know how to apply it to your own life once you have finished reading my article. However, that’s not how it should necessarily work. What ‘promising change’ means has more to do with securing a place for the reader in your article. Your Substack shouldn’t be a vain and self-referential writing exercise without a direction: your intention must be clear to yourself first, and then to the others. Steaming off or confessing through writing can be therapeutic, but shouldn’t leave your personal vault unless there is a part of you that has a reason for sharing it beyond self-praise or introspection. There should always be a speck of universal in even the most personal experience: and that’s how it becomes relevant. And that’s how change is brought forward.

Keep the habit alive to keep the passion alive

Sometimes you just won’t have the time or the inspiration to write an article or keep up with your own publishing schedule. It’s normal to leave writing for last when the routine gets overwhelming, yet it is the first instinct you must fight if you don’t want your project to sink.

Write everyday. It may be a single sentence in your therapy journal, a thought on your notes app, a series of bullet points to keep in mind, a short-term plan to face a task, or a letter to burn in bay leaves. But ideally, write a small paragraph of your next article each day no matter where you are mentally. Any mood brings a new colour to your message and you may find yourself welcoming a new point of view or angle. It doesn’t have to be productive writing, you might even skip a week of publications; who cares? It’s not the reason why you want to write.

The next 5-min burst of creativity on a busy day may prove a nice addition to your work, once you go back to it; or it might as well become the umpteenth thought you will leave behind to follow another inspiration. In any case, you will keep your passion alive and treat the goal of becoming a Substack writer as an imperative that comes true every day even for a little while.

Publish a ‘bad’ article every once in a while (and treat it like the others)

There is always a piece that we believe could sound better or could be more polished, so we keep editing without ever turning it into an article. Sometimes we even pour our soul onto the paper and find ourselves with something we don’t quite like as much as other works in our repertoire.

Hit the “publish” button on those every now and then, let’s say once every two months. Moreover, treat it as all the others, even as the best one you have ever published yet: promote it, curate the visuals and layout carefully, even restack it from the archive after a while. See it fail or unexpectedly reap its fruits. Any kind of information you can get about your audience, your writing abilities, even about the opinion you have of yourself as a writer, is a step forward in the journey of becoming, that links the starting point of wanting and the goal of being. What will you learn from this? That there are not steps back.

Meaningful Engagement

As I mentioned, I would let comparison discourage me on multiple occasions. There was always a tingle of envy or self-deprecation in my engagement with other writers, but since I started praising the work of others in my monthly wraps I understood the power of community that this social media has, which is what makes it different from other social media platforms. Who said that using a feature to your advantage takes the pleasure or the spontaneity out of it?

If you want to express your support, comment on an article. If you want to share your insight on a topic, particularly if it can be linked to an article of yours, restack the work with a note. If there is a writer that you would love to see succeeding, recommend them. All these actions are genuine forms of support that can also help you help others find you. Don’t use engagement forms as a performative act to drive traffic to your own page, but make them make sense according to your objective and personal taste. Even the most distracted like should be able to say something about you.

Share your interests outside of your project through the Notes

I know that in several ways I have been discouraging you from writing about anything without any compass. This doesn’t mean that you should repress every part of your being.

There was an account that used to pop up every day on my feed who would share the incredible spots that they found to write daily on their Notes. In a simple click, they brought aesthetic and interior design into her range of interests that they share with the Substack community, without having to carve a space for it on her account.

Start treating the Notes as we do with Instagram stories, or used to with X or Tumblr. Ultimately, Substack is just another social media that we open on the train, in the bathroom, or during our lunch break. If you are afraid this would take too much of your time, try using the same visual content that you prepare for your favourite social media for Substack. Only a couple of words as a description, and you will see that any content can be Substack-friendly.

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Don’t be ashamed to be thirsty for a like

Let’s be honest: if you are here writing, it’s because you want to make it. If you fish for likes every now and then, don’t feel ashamed: every business implies a tinge of calculated behaviour. Believe me, I live in Brussels and I am EU Bubble-adjacent: you don’t truly know what ‘ulterior motive’ means until you have experienced that kind of networking technique.

As soon as I publish an article, I dedicate at least an hour to sharing my work below those clickbait Notes. Some might be genuine calls for articles, but you can’t really tell them apart sometimes. In any case, don’t be afraid to use them to your advantage. After the first day, I usually keep this activity going with a more sporadic schedule and I try to do the same for other articles of mine that might be more interesting for the person with whom I am sharing it with.

I also try to restack or comment on all articles that might be similar to another one of mine, new or old, and take the opportunity to flag my work. That’s how I got one of my favourite Italian writers to subscribe to one of my websites.

I also don’t mind quoting other works on Substack or other social media. I then contact the owner of the video/post or the author of an article to let them know that I have been inspired by their work and that I would really appreciate their support.

Offer alternative ways of supporting your work financially

I am a young employee with a junior salary living in one of the most expensive cities in Europe. As of today, I can’t afford to feed my thirst for knowledge by subscribing to any magazine, book delivery service from a publisher, or another fellow writer on Substack. It is a big financial commitment that I can’t afford at the moment.

It is easy for me to put myself in the shoes of my readers and imagine how frustrated they would be if suddenly they couldn’t be able to read as much of me anymore. But I also see myself desperate because of all my followers nobody has turned on a paid subscription and now nobody is reading my articles. It is a vision dictated by low self-esteem and innate negativity, but it’s not a remote possibility. There are so many more subscription that are worth our limited financial means: as Netflix has an endless repertoire and you wouldn’t spend the same amount on a single DvD, so bigger writers on Substack have much more to offer than I do.

However, it is everybody’s dream here to make a living out of our art. So I tried to find other ways to encourage more sustainable forms of financial contribution and found Buy Me A Coffee. The website allows you to make a symbolic contribution: when you go to the bar, you ask for a coffee, and then pay what the store has established that it is worth. I usually write at home with a coffee mug in my hand, and it would really mean the world if a reader would decide to support me by offering me a shot of that warm fuel. I believe it also gives the reader a sense of the impact of a single donation in the life of a creator.

Moreover, Substack allows you to add people to the list of paying subscribers even if they haven’t switched on the plan: you can also grant access for a month to all those that make a payment via Buy Me A Coffee, or switch to paywalled content while granting OG supporters full access and give them time to decide whether to switch to a paid subscription or not. This is the direction that I am going to take soon, and if it doesn’t work, I can always go back to free publications and find new ways.

Thank you for staying with me today. I guess that what I wanted to achieve with this article is a celebration of my perseverance and commitment to a project, although it’s not showing its plumpest fruits yet; while encouraging you to do the same.

Trusting the process is an empty concept if you forget the joy of writing and showing up along the way. If you still haven’t made it on Substack after two months … it means you are doing it right.

So basically after four hours of waiting at the airport loaded like a pack mule, another two unnecessarily freezing on a plane, and a one-hour ride to reach my mom’s house, I found myself sleeping in a place that looked familiar but not quite enough for me to stay in as if time hadn’t passed.

I remembered sleeping in that bed at a time when I didn’t really notice the walls that surrounded me, but now every tiniest detail has a specific meaning and is worthy of attention. I was really into statues of fairies when I was little, but then I suddenly stopped. All the knick-knacks on the shelves reminded me of my trips to London, Bath, Dublin, Belfast, Vienna, Paris; it has been a while since I took a trip to sightsee, pub crawl or study a language, at least not since ‘abroad’ became a place I was living in, and coming back home required taking days off from work and taking a flight as if it was a regular vacation. I have never collected many photos, but my school madel photobook at the end of my last year: there was my crush from the fourth year, there was that girl I once had a fight with in the corridor to defend a friend, there was my whole class and the people I once thought I couldn’t live without: the people that not only would get all my references, but where most of them; the people that look at me as if that girl from the picture was still alive and well and hadn’t changed the way she has.

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I actually managed to meet some of them during my weekend back in my hometown. The hours were mainly spent catching up with what we have missed while living apart, just some quick reminiscing, and then promises to check up on each other more frequently than we have been doing. The creepy feeling of derealization you leave with? Nostalgia mixed with unfamiliarity. Especially if the bar where you just had the first Aperol Spritz of the year once was the pizzeria whose tasty smells reached the window of your classroom and announced that it was almost time for lunch, thus almost time to leave your friends behind and go back to a house where your mother misunderstood you and homework stood between you and the Gilmore Girls rerun.

I had a best friend once. Not just a person, but my person. To be fair, I still consider them my person, but I cannot avoid getting that exact unsettling eeling each time I interact with them. Not only because there is a lot of resentment between us that being very far away from each other for a long time didn’t help to solve since we haven’t been face-to-face for almost a year: you see, every time we interact with people that belong to a specific period of our time and are not part of who we are in any substantial way, we are kind of forced into the shape of the person they used to know. As much as I miss that cheeky adolescent and I wish I would let her emerge more often, I wouldn’t go back to being that girl for anything. Some things and people got lost along the way and I would be a hypocrite if I said I wouldn’t change anything about the past, but it is okay to grow up.

My person was the one that introduced me to musical theatre, so they would understand why The Boy From Oz has been haunting me ever since I started thinking about how our relationship has changed. “Not the boy next door” resonates with me to absurd levels, but a lyric in particular keeps running marathon tracks around my brain:

Although the affection lingers, and old friends keep being lighthouses when everything seems out of balance, at the end of the day they are somebody that you used to know.

What and who was I in high school, when I met most of my dearest friends? I hadn’t met my fiancé and I was praying hard that a jerk would one day become it. I thought my writing was average and it would interest nobody; reading my essays out loud in class was the most frightening moment of the week. I was surrounded by the people who made my life in middle school a genuine hell and roamed unpunished in the same corridors as me, constantly reminding me of a period of life I wanted so badly to get out of my sight. I had two or three anxiety attacks each day, come rain or shine. The group of people I desperately wanted to be part of was excluding me from parties and talking behind my back. I was the obnoxious, jittery, performative know-it-all and nothing more, although I already knew I contained multitudes. I shouted instead of talking to my mother, I cried for my dad’s absence and mixed signals, I was watching my grandfather fade away before my eyes every day. I had to do maths and chemistry.

As much as my real friends made it all bearable, every time I am forced to reminisce about a past version of myself it’s a huge setback for the person who managed to overcome it all.

It was very nice and refreshing to see some good acquaintances and get out of my routine and usual conversations for a while, but feeling nostalgic about something you don’t want anymore is truly a triggering situation to be in. I loved our car rides to town to go shopping, but I definitely prefer being within walking distance of even the furthest department store. I definitely miss those late nights playing card games and quoting trashy TV shows, but I would have missed out on early nights in, watching brand-new trashy TV shows with five roommates from three different countries.

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But I wouldn’t focus only on the perks of moving from a stagnant village in the mountains, which do not necessarily imply that you lose grip on who you are and what you like.

The atmosphere of those study trips abroad with my classmates was priceless and unparalleled, but how about those brunches in cafés with your own money and a friend with whom you can talk for hours? Going out with single friends had a unique vibe, but I also deeply enjoy strolling around the city on my man’s arm, and I didn’t mind having to go from spending every living moment with a different friend or having time for late night calls, to a busy schedule made of heavier groceries, tiny dates to keep the romanticism alive, and just a little more overall exhaustion.

I would kill to have a card game night again. Just one, though. I am not yet tired of the life I have built for myself, no matter how chaotic it is and how many totally random factors outside of my control shaped it.

And I still love getting a text from my person, or getting a sudden urge to text them, but I don’t want to feel guilty for not feeling the urge to include them in any tiny aspect of my life anymore.

Maybe I should bring back the fairies. But apart from that, “I can’t go back there anymore, ‘cause I am not the boy next door”.

I should know, since I was born on a 26th.

In fact most people have a hard time remembering my birthday, and are positive it’s either on the 25th or the 27th because the actual date “doesn’t sound right”. To this day my friends send me their birthday wishes the day before or after on purpose, just to keep the joke going. But if that joke took root it was because people have truly forgotten more times than they have remembered. I even share the birthday with a close friend of mine, and it happens very often that mutual acquaintances wish her happy birthday to my face and then forget about me.

Plus, it always rains on the 26th of September. Just the other day I was reminiscing with my dad and he still gets this vivid memory of what a true hell it was to organize my party outdoors, so much so that they just stopped trying altogether. I didn’t remember this detail as clearly, but the imperative was so deeply rooted in our birthday ritual that I never questioned it. To be fair, the last couple of birthdays have been quite rainy, thus proving the statement.

Ergo, 26 must be an unremarkable age to turn.

I was not looking forward to celebrating my birthday this year. I am not against the concept that every year counts and is worth making an occasion out of it, of course. For those that prayed to see the light of another day at some point in their lives, making it 365 times in a row is an even bigger accomplishment. I myself am one of the few still standing that enjoy celebrating their birthday. What is there not to like about the idea?

I usually make a big fuss starting from the first day of September and obsess for three whole weeks about what I should do, who I should invite, how much I can spend on each guest, and so on. Nevertheless, this time round I feel somehow less into it all.

I am full of bittersweet memories linked to my birthday, and yet I take every year as a challenge to finally make it right. And this aim alone makes it feel right, at least.

Truth is, my birthday is a happy occasion for me but it is also the most stressful day to plan. Enduring disappointment has inevitably become part of the whole package, so I always welcome my birthday with conflicting feelings.

I remember being mesmerized by ‘Pity Party’ by Melanie Martinez when it first came out. It expressed perfectly a specific period of my life, but it also conveyed a general sensation of unimportance and uneasiness when people don’t show up to a celebration, particularly if you are the subject. Meaning, in some way, that they don’t appreciate you enough to make a couple of hours about you. You suddenly feel heavy, responsible, unbearable, delusional, lonely.

I shared my fatigue around the whole birthday organization machine with a friend and she just casually mentioned that expectations might be what is getting in my way — once again, what a surprise!

Anticipation and expectation keep me alert and unsettled, so I spend the days that precede the birthday as if I were steadily caffeinated. Although nothing ever turns out how I plan it, I still go the extra mile to make it magical while being prepared to get disappointed. People you were looking forward to having over might forget. You might not get the text you were hoping to get. The gift could be terrible and show that your friends don’t care about you enough to find something you would like. There might even be no gifts. You might realize somebody you considered a friend is not such a big fan of yours and the feeling is not mutual. Your guests might hate the place you choose to have the party, or even complain about the commute or the drinks. Hell, as it turns out, they might even just not feel it and leave you alone on your planned night out. If you pay for a single bottle of champagne, it might not be enough. If you organize a free open bar, you just throw money out the window to please people (but never all of them, as always). If you make it a casual get-together, it might be boring. If you organize a whole production, it may not accommodate everybody and become a burden. If you stress about it, it will fail. If you don’t care enough, it will fail.

What I am probably doing wrong is making my birthday about others, rather than myself. It makes perfect sense then that this Saturday 26th of September I got this urge to just start the day off with a solo breakfast in that nice café in which I never managed to enter, with all the vegan options (being lactose intolerant, they are simply my biggest joy). Then I listened to myself a little bit more and picked a free museum visit and invited my fiancé to come over; if he had said no, I would have gone anyway. I knew of a party that I would have loved to attend on a regular day, and I just told people to meet there. I offered the first round of drinks, and it was fine.

It’s not like I didn’t care, because you can never truly stop caring about your birthday if you are wired like that. However, a laid-back plan did the trick and I finally enjoyed my birthday. My main concern this time around was indulging in what I knew would leave a sweet aftertaste for the days to come. Low budget, low effort, low expectations. High pleasure.

I reckon I didn’t lose the festive spirit at all: it has just grown up and evolved with me, I guess. Maybe at 26 you stop caring about surprise parties and gifts and start prioritizing your comfort above it all, and my comfort kicks in when nobody expects anything from me.

So once again a friend was right and a girl had a breakthrough. But this time around I took action and finally made something that concerned me about me.

My 26th birthday gift to myself is a promise to perform a small spontaneous act of self-love every day to train my brain to welcome comfort.

Once I hit send on this message, I wanted to press record again and continue complaining about all the times in which I felt like being dependable was never rewarding. Oh, the times I accommodated others and they would never return the favour! When that date thought I wouldn’t mind receiving a last-minute reply and I would keep my whole schedule clear for them, when my fiancé bought the food he liked but I couldn’t eat while I always shop for both, when my friend sent me an event on the same day as my birthday suggesting we “change plans” and do this instead to celebrate, or when my parents wouldn’t put a smile on their face just to make me happy and ruin my day.

After a while that friend replied with a single short answer:

"Can't blame your gust for overstaying if you left the door open and kept refilling their glass."

Being dependable and available is a quick way to feel good about ourselves by being good to others, but it doesn’t come without a cost: resentment is just around the corner.

What if the problem was not the people taking the opportunity you give them, but you giving it in the first place? What if boundaries are not just a nice word your therapist says all the time, but the key that closes the door that keeps intruders away?

Let me explain my point step by step. Too often when we put our time and resources at the disposal of other people, we don’t really want them to accept it: what we do is either ask for permission to proceed in our tracks, assurance that we are not bothering or causing harm to anybody, or a chance for them to be good people in return by declining.

But since when does taking a favour or a display of flexibility mean that somebody is a bad person? Why would anybody waste an opportunity if it accommodates them? Why would they go the extra mile to convince you to hold on tight to what belongs to you when you are offering it so gladly? It is me (and anybody who can relate to this) who sees the good in giving myself away for the benefit of the other plate of the scale, and consequently it is my responsibility if it has been thrown off its balance. It is not wrong for people to assume you know what you are doing when you are giving them a choice, an opportunity, or an alternative; meaning they are not bad people for not being able to read your intention.

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Insincere unctuosity, sycophantic expectation, obsessive people-pleasing, are way more detrimental than lacking empathic intuition: expecting telepathy and assuming everybody wants to be able to read people’s minds and reprogramme their own lives and expectations accordingly is delusional behaviour, wishful thinking, and a shortcut to disappointment. If we attach meaning to things, we cannot point fingers when reality does not match our expectations. You can never hold somebody accountable for taking advantage of something you are stripping yourself from and offering it, particularly if you don’t even give clues of how much you didn’t want them to accept it. As I am writing, my colleague said she doesn’t feel well and I just volunteered to pick up her slack, although I could really use a calm working day to write and catch up on some boring tasks. It’s just an innocent nice gesture in the eyes of those who don’t know what it conceals and what kind of vicious loop it enables.

Maybe the key to the whole discourse is why we need external validation so much. In a way, what I long for by acting this way is a sense of self-worth that I can’t find in myself, so I seek it in others. Of course being used means being useful somehow. In the ideal plan, their gratefulness for your sacrifice leads to the decision to “spare you”, give you a break from being of use, allowing you to feel content with yourself without guilt or remorse. But what is the self-worth you can actually gain from opening your doors and your peace to use and abuse?

I am not a therapist, and being a patient for as long as I can remember doesn’t make me an expert in any way, but I am observant. Those who indulge in expectations know they cannot prevent the thought from occurring; the fact that it is so automatic and certain is truly concerning and unveils old patterns that inhabit them like a parasite. It is a primary need like water and food.

Having made my point so early in the essay does kill my chances of finding a nice impactful conclusion to this story, I am afraid. I am a huge fan of accountability, but blame is a dangerous game to play. So maybe just try and not blame yourself for not having broken the loop yet. Most importantly, don’t resent or condemn the people that hold high expectations of you: they actually expect impossible, destructive things from themselves.

This geriatric case has been getting in our way for quite some time with his patronizing and tyrannical ways. He has always hidden behind surface politeness, although we knew exactly what had been going on in-house from his colleagues. Nobody likes him one bit, but he is an authority in our field and it is better to have him on your side than against you.

Honestly, I didn’t want it to turn into a whole matter of conscience. I wanted to forget about it as soon as possible and I was worried my colleagues would drag it out unnecessarily, but then they decided to take it personally on my behalf. See, all in all, I was determined to move on with my day as if nothing had happened. Naturally it wasn’t pleasant, but I was at peace with the idea that I had to endure his presence and his arrogance and I was perfectly content with delegating all communications with him to my colleagues, as they originally offered to do. I even felt like any escalation would be my fault, so I got a bit frustrated later on because I had to accept that my colleagues were not willing to let him get away with this one this time. It was as if our team was a unique breathing organ and we had all been menaced by his behaviour, but in my opinion it was worthless to make a big deal out of it.

I soon realized, after ruminating on the incident (as I usually do), that the only thing I deemed worthless was my self-respect, while I was supposed to make it my priority; what bothered me about that whole intervention stemmed from my not being acquainted with demanding respect or having others going the extra mile to claim it on my behalf.

That day I came to the conclusion that taking it personally can feel like an act of love, and that maybe we are not doing it enough.

The reason why I didn’t want to take that man’s disrespect too personally was because I wanted to detach myself from the event and any meaning I could have attached to it. I wanted to shield myself. It is easy, however, in a world of patronizers, to confuse taking personally with taking seriously. Indeed, taking warnings and tasks seriously can be praiseworthy, but it’s the exaggeration in responsibility that undermines its potential benefits: taking yourself and others too seriously is a disservice to humanity and society.

Taking yourself seriously sucks all the fun and joy out of life. We shouldn’t be too self-absorbed and hyper-vigilant at all times, for our own sakes. To be fully honest, my attempt to not take anything personally actually attaches all kinds of meaning to people and circumstances, particularly when I shouldn’t have. Taking people and incidents too seriously creates the paradox where you want to detach from it, but you end up giving it the upper hand on your peace and wellbeing.

In short, taking yourself seriously makes everything too permanent.

If you can’t see the blessings of taking things personally when it is due, you should consider the dangers of never being able, or never allowing yourself, to do it.

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Not taking anything personally gets in the way of a forgotten form of development: accountability. Bearing the consequences of one’s own actions has an educational role that is nullified by sweeping blame and responsibility under the rug of stubborn and self-harming endurance. We should all face accountability every now and then. Not taking something personally that should not go unnoticed or scot-free is just giving the culprit permission to disregard other people’s dignity.

This explains why ruthless, arrogant and passive-aggressive people are always the ones that invite others not to take anything personally: they don’t want to see consequences unravelling before their eyes. Well, some people should.

I mean: after all, they did offend you. They knew there was going to be a consequence and decided to act badly regardless, because they realized one truth: people that seek peace are not confrontational. However, whose peace are we defending when we do not take things personally? It’s not ours, for sure, but theirs. Just look at how the people around you defend their peace, and you will always find even the slightest hint of conflict. Therefore, we must conclude that taking offences personally is a form of self-love, and genuinely ruthless people thrive on the lack thereof.

My colleagues that stood up for me might just have more self-respect than me, and even respect me more than I do myself. At least, enough to take it personally.

This intimate reflection has been triggered by an unusual prompt. Not in its format, because who doesn’t collect information from social media anymore? The surprise was more in the spiral of thought that said information caused, ultimately leading to a profound realization and the sudden need to praise a person so dear to my heart. It was a truly spontanous writing, which is not my usual favourite thing to publish. In any case, it fell so urgent I couldn’ keep it in the drawer until the time was right.

Now, back to my morning of realizations.

When I think of Barbie movies, I immediately see a small girl dancing in her pajamas, standing on the bed of my childhood best friend. Those of you that dare to be regulars to my essays have already been introduced to her as the friend that cussed me out with reason for not showing up in her moment of greatest need, and eventually forgave me. She is all things Barbie for me, because we were all about that doll and her movies when we were little. We had the songs and choreographies down to an art and would sell fake paper tickets to our parents to invite them to watch us replay them. We shared Barbie magazines, we swapped the clothes of our dolls and tried to style their hair with lotions made out of our momss’ hair products and random ‘secret’ ingredients (failing miserably). We would even go as her characters for the Mardi Gras carnival, and believe me when I say that when we were little it was even a bigger deal than Halloween in the US. Even to this day we still send each other Barbie-related videos and memes on social media.

So naturally, if I imagine myself having a watch party of Barbie movies, I can picture her and only her by my side. Would we still be able to replicate the dances? Would we be surprised by a detail we’d forgotted but seemed so important at the time? I see the same exact scene of us dancing in circles in front of the screen, only the orange juice with straws has turned into a colourful cocktail or a bottle of beer, and we barely remember the songs anymore.

Curiously enough the idyllic scene didn’t last long in my head. After picturing us laughing and dancing, playing around with a tulle fabric and styling our hair funny, reminiscing about the years that have passed, I immediately saw myself crying on her shoulder and her on mine, asking where and why time had gone, and wondering if all that pain that happened after we were kids really had to occur for us to get there.

Life hasn’t been kind to anybody after we crossed the line of infancy. Hell, some of us didn’t even have the luxury of a good childhood, but we did. And then life did us dirty in so many ways.

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I realized that it is actually hard to share tears and traumatic events with a person that is tied to you by such whimsical and gracious memories; it is probably what has been jeopardizing our chances to have an adult friendship for so long. But this also means that you will always have a place where you can just pretend nothing has ever happened, a bond that is solely based on beautiful moments and that thrives precisely because of them. Childhood friends may not know you that deeply anymore, but they will always allow you to regress to a version of you that has never been tested by the events. Incorrupted. Hopeful. Oblivious. They are the only living speck of your past that you can actually dust off and play with, like that old doll with coloured chalk on her head in an attempt to break those tight curls.

What are the options? Videos and photos don’t do the trick after a while because you keep forgetting context and circumstances. Serial accumulation of memorabilia and souvenirs only takes up space for things that are necessary and more valuable to your current life. Recreating the moment at all costs is just sad (like those awful class reunions or chatting with that teacher at the supermarket). Being with the person that was there the whole time these things happened brings childhood back instantly, as if it never left. People, sharing, community: they always do the trick.

Beware: such a gift can slip through your fingers if you don’t tend to it properly. You cannot take it and leave it as you please. You must enter those fields of memory with gratitude, humbleness, and truthfulness. You must treat those friends as the missing piece to access a safe place — you know, like those half-heart matching pendants we used to give each other in the 2010s! They rely on you to be fond of those memories to revive and enjoy them in return. There must be an implicit agreement that everything corrupted stays outside of the bubble you create together in order for it to work.

This might be the shortest essay I have ever made, and because of this it probably doesn’t even deserve to be called it.

It is an ode.

An ode to that childhood girl friend in my life, and to all the childhood friends that are still in our lives and make them a little less painful to bear.

To those who guard the most prosperous corner of our heart in their memories. To those we go to when we want to reset our brain. To those who would love to cry with us, but decide to dance it off to honour the joyful nature of two kids that are unaware of what is waiting for them around the corner.

They are the only people we don’t have to explain anything to. They know, they see it in your eyes. They knew you before your light was dimmed. They can recognize you behind that tortured skin and those wise words. They can bring the carefree version of you back, even for just a moment.

Childhood friends don’t need to waste time hearing what has gone wrong in each other’s lives, or sharing anecdotes from the disappointing lives we lead. Lord knows I would love to do this with her some times: the adult part of me knows it is the key to being better friends. But if I did that, if I wanted our adult versions to meet, it would spoil all the fun of being in the presence of the only person that can make it all go away for a while. Leaving the adult at home when we hang out is our implicit agreement.

We used to play pretend together all the time. Once upon a time, we dreamt of being accomplished women with extraordinary careers, living together in a gorgeous apartment in a sleepless city where you could eat ice cream in bed after 9 p.m. and have all the pets you liked. Now we dream of going back to when life hadn’t crushed us yet. But it is the same game, and she will always be my favourite play date.

I have been seeing somebody new recently.

L., my current therapist, is nothing like my first, A. That might be because we are just getting to know each other and we are giving our best to make it work. Also, there isn’t the frustration that I built up after five years with A. poisoning our relationship. You know, it was time we went our separate ways; God knows I felt like she was not understanding me anymore, like at all.

I tried going for a different choice of words, I truly did; but isn’t it interesting how the very first instinct that I had was talking about my therapist as if she were an ex?

Could we say that I just broke up with my therapist?

It’s not easy to let go of someone after five years. I was so afraid of what changing therapists would entail. You always kind of suspect that you might be letting them down, so I tried to sow small signals here and there. She wasn’t getting them of course, because she was clueless as to where all the doubts, silences, and missed appointments came from. I didn’t want to face the consequences; I thought I didn’t have the strength in me to start anew; I was afraid I would be too hard on myself if I encountered some difficulties.

And let’s be honest: I didn’t want to put myself in that position either. Who enjoys the speaking up, the delivery of the truth, the defense of their position, the goodbyes? I saw it all before even doing it and it scared me to death. Naturally, I was expecting some resistance: nobody goes down without a fight. I was so convinced that she would resent me for leaving her, as if it had already happened. She would have said that I was making a self-fulfilling prophecy — again. I mean, she wouldn’t have been wrong, but I couldn’t stay with her just because she was competent when so many elements of our relationship were irreparably wanting.

I started my speech with a deep breath and a strong excuse up my sleeve: me not being comfortable with therapy from abroad. I described all my rituals on my way to her cabinet and then back home to her with nostalgia, I expressed all my dissatisfaction with online sessions, I sentenced all these changes too unpleasant to overlook. The classic “circumstances have changed, we are growing apart”. Of course she had to build a whole session around it: why am I not making time for therapy? What are the available solutions to make it work? I appreciated the effort, but I was so determined to let her go that she didn’t convince me much. In any case, we ended up scheduling another session as if I had never opened my mouth.

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The following Friday morning at 9 a.m. sharp, I had this whole plan prepared: I would make it a financial matter. I figured that she would be more prone to accept such a reason, be too embarrassed to linger on the topic for too long, move on and go our separate ways. However, I hadn’t given due consideration to the fact that it was a lie too big for me to tell. I have never put a price on my mental health; or else, I wouldn’t have endured the expenses for so long and without my parents ever chipping in even though in the beginning I was still a student and couldn’t find a job. So I improvised last-minute and juggled my way into a slightly more accurate version of facts: lately I hadn’t been seeing any progress, as if we had been running in circles. Of course this one also became the central topic of yet another wasted session: why was I resisting change? Lord knows she was right, but she had no idea that the only change I was truly resisting involved her.

Third time’s the charm? Not for me. The following session I just put the topic aside altogether and went on passively as I had been doing for the past couple of months.

So, the fourth time had to be the last. To my surprise, nothing I had foreseen happened. She listened to me calmly without interrupting, reassured me that she couldn’t have been prouder to see the person I turned into, and even added that after five years it was normal to want a break. I wasn’t sure that she understood that I had no intention of coming back into her care, but she encouraged me to test the waters elsewhere and finally introduced the central topic that I had been waiting for: goodbye.

I will not bore you with the details of this last exchange, but she wanted to make sure that we had wrapped it all up in a nice and clear way so that I wouldn’t have to start from scratch, or be misunderstood in any way, by my future therapist. I was kind of hoping, after all those years, to get a diagnosis from her; but I didn’t, which is cool in many ways. Why should anybody make assumptions about me from just one word or acronym? They better make the same effort she put into her job to find out who I am and what I need.

I thought that was the biggest obstacle to overcome, but I was only fooling myself. I had been feeling it coming the whole time: regret and resentment. Regret for not having done this before, but also for the fear that I didn’t give it all to make it work. Resentment towards myself for not being independent from therapy yet, after five years. Resentment toward A., because she got sloppy with time and made me want to leave her.

I guess the relief of my long-standing friends when I gave them the news can be illustrative of the tension, frustration, and disappointment I had been bottling up since quite early in our doctor-patient relationship. At first, I left her studio with awareness, which is very precious; but lately I had been leaving with the sense that I had wasted more time and money on an empty exercise of storytelling that led nowhere.

We reached the point of no return two years ago, when I moved abroad — long-distance might not be an excuse after all. Around that time, she started taking answers for granted (both mine and hers) and I felt like she was picking the direction we were going to take beforehand. No matter where I started, the finish line was always the same realization we landed on at least three years before. Yes I have a complicated relationship with my dad, yes I can’t seem to understand how to set a boundary, yes I have a problem with moral perfectionism and I cannot accept error. But how can I get past this?

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Also, I started seeing the shortcomings of her approach in relation to what I felt I needed. I long for instructions, that first kick in the ass that gets you out of the house. Then the brain has this ability to rewire on its own based on the information, habits and beliefs you feed it — AI models really have this process down to an art, I have to concede that. I know I need the push, the first rigorous step before being able to take it up out of my own will. She was all words and theory. It was nice in the beginning, because as I said there is always something reinvigorating in an epiphany that can change your outlook on life for a while. But I realized with time that it doesn’t work for too long with me. She didn’t have the right approach to make me independent from external help and validation, so we dragged out therapy for longer than we could have.

When I look back at all the progress, all the accomplishments, it wasn’t even clear to me if I should be thanking her for that. And when there were relapses, we never changed approach, and we kind of waited for the storm to pass together, as we did many times before. Why didn’t I switch therapists before? Why did I wait so long?

I knew I would end up feeling like I had to prove a point to her and myself. Although I was totally paralysed, and feeling better meant doing the same (if not worse), I had to convince myself that I was better off. That didn’t last long, though: my safe harbour had become a stranger. I was afraid I could never be able to make it on my own. Maybe it isn’t time to make it alone yet, but I wanted so hard for it to be. What if I can never get out of the therapy loop? Am I doomed to be dependent? What if I cannot take it up from where I left with A. with somebody new? Will I trick her into thinking higher of me? Will I be able to disclose what another has helped me unveil without feeling ashamed? What if A. was the best I could do?

Well, in hindsight I am doing just fine now, as if I had never gone through that challenging transition period. I am truly giving my new therapist the fairest shot by being transparent, not imposing what I believe the answer to be. I have to admit that if I am a better patient today, I owe it all to the first therapist I have ever had. After all, this was actually a huge part of our therapy: forgiving my past self for not being able to see the future. I think A. is actually proud of me for finding the guts to leave her. She was undoubtedly what I needed back then when it all started, and she was a professional in letting it go before it got rotten.

This is how any kind of first should be, no?

Since my partner proposed to me, I became obsessed with understanding if we are truly compatible before it’s too late.

The same thought doesn’t seem to be haunting him. Well, it would have been quite stupid of him to propose without being at least sure that he wanted to spend a big portion of his life by my side. I am not sure if it was stupid or clever of me to accept.

Mind you, there isn’t a single bone in my body that feels sorry for agreeing to this. At the same time, it is not in my nature to do the right thing right away, to be honest. I have this bad habit of ignoring my gut feeling, while I know perfectly well that with me anything will turn into a physical feeling (good and bad). I tend to intellectualize and second-guess everything: naturally my body knows stuff before my brain can even comprehend it! Yet I am rarely comfortable making any step of any kind if I haven’t chewed on it long enough that it becomes flavourless. The man by my side manages to drag the impulse out of my depths. He has the power to make me feel and act fast. It was only natural that I would say yes when he proposed; why on Earth did I believe that my overthinking wouldn’t pop back up again at some point?

Now I can’t stop thinking about the possibility of catastrophe. Is he a match? He looks like one on paper and in the bones. He is a real-life man giving me real-life commitment. But you see, I don’t trust my own judgment when people I love are involved: I don’t seem to be able to hold on to my own needs when I have to deal with theirs.

Some mornings I wake up and wonder if I am about to make the biggest mistake of my life. I questioned myself to exhaustion, as if I was on both the judge and the defendant.

But after all the rumination and second-guessing, I have built a strong case: most of my doubts don’t come from a fear of incompatibility, but from the fear of incomprehension.

His native language is Moroccan Darija, mine is Italian. French is our bridge language, but it feels more like the arena where our beings come to love and fight. It is not just the multiple misunderstandings that leave me guessing, but rather all the potential misperceptions — all the meanings, reasons and needs that we lose in translation.

A language is never only about being able to communicate. All this love, all these memories, all these promises and projects are happening in a language that doesn’t translate any of our beings to the fullest.

Basically, there are three ways in which language can get in the way of compatibility (and in which a multicultural couple can go wrong).

First: it is possible and sometimes involuntary to put forward only the best version of ourselves, the one that doesn’t show the scars of our past or the shadow of our secrets, because we can pick what to sweep under the rug of incommunicability. We can rewrite endings, reasons, backgrounds. Who has never used the device of a new language to reinvent themselves a little bit? If you think you don’t, let your friends tell you if you change your tone and gestures when you shift languages or not.

Second: there is a concrete risk that we will never be able to properly translate our deepest beings when it will be required. Whole parts of ourselves are blocked by a tall and robust language barrier, and I’m always left with the doubt that we don’t understand each other as we should. Imagine not being able to express a feeling or a grievance in the language in which none of us are used to receiving information. I am not talking about taking the chicken out of the freezer, but all that shapes our perception of the world and the people around us.

‘Vita mia’ is not the same as ‘hayati’. They both mean ‘my life’ in words, but they could never mean it in terms of expressive power or message conveyed. They don’t sound the same, they don’t share the same root, they don’t open the same doors. Another example: when I sneeze, I need him to wish me good health; when he sneezes, he thanks God and moves on. Are we even living under the same sky? Is he hearing the jump-rope beat of my poem?

Third and finally: there is always the reasonable doubt that what we think is a personality trait in reality stems from a cultural factor, which makes it far harder to bring up during a conflict. For instance, he never touches me in front of family or strangers, ever. It bugs me to irritation. But should I confront him about this? If it is something he is supposed to do, and not just his personality, am I within my rights to force him? Conversely, touch for my family is like a sonar to a bat, would he be entitled to ask me to tone it down? Would I be losing more than a simple behaviour? Culture isn’t just food, religious holidays, and other things that stand out the most: it’s also the role of family, how guests are treated, the very concept of relationship itself; and many more fundamental factors.

Our relationship is doomed to misunderstandings, frustrations, moments of deep incomprehension that, in the heat of the moment, are hard to work through in an adult, level-headed way. Moments that have really made me question our future.

Nevertheless, when the attorney’s case has been built and rested, the defense raises another spontaneous question: am I sabotaging this? If this has been torture for me, the poor unaware fiancé hasn’t been spared either. Naturally, even after making such an important promise, he was back to probation as if I don’t even know the man. I mean, what is supposed to happen to a couple and the trust that holds it together when one of them constantly puts the other to the test? How exhausting must it be for the other to come back home to a person that is always alert? This does not mean that all my fears and doubts should be discredited or ignored. But what if following through with them all without skimming gets in the way of something beautiful? Not only beautiful: real, unraveling in front of me, and that doesn’t leave room for wondering.

The final verdict will probably never be reached, but in the end the judge invited caution: accept that it is normal to wonder about the unforeseeable. If it’s true that one will never have to translate your heart to a kindred soul, I sure hope that it is our case; and if we are not there yet, we must definitely put in the work to find ways to prove this saying right by example. Because I have no intention of letting an awful possibility spoil a good and existing joy.

We will just have to make a single poem out of two different beats.

I must admit that I spent quite some time looking for my fault in all this. As much as I seem to love feeling guilty, I couldn’t find a single reason why she should be mad at me. I never step down from a good fight with a friend when I think that I have been wronged, as I never shy away from a good opportunity to defend my reasons when I stand accused of the same crime. I believe it is only fair and a symptom of a sound relationship if we can invite the other to be accountable for the harm they do and own it.

At the same time, Lord knows I hate it when it is my turn! I was going through some heavy stuff a while back, and I was avoiding many people so that I wouldn’t get asked to share anything about how I was. After a couple of weeks, one of my closest friends back home, L., got suspicious and reached out, asking me why I wasn’t as responsive as before. I clammed up. I won’t lie, it felt like he was trying to invade my privacy and force me to admit to a crime. I replied in a very defensive tone, and I bet he had to make the biggest effort trying not to react in the same tone. He approached me as if I were a stray dog he wanted to rescue. He endured, he invited me to open up if I felt up to it and offered his shoulder for when I would be ready. I apologized, I explained that I was going through some things, and thanked him. After that I asked myself what I could possibly feel threatened by at first. After all, how the hell is a person who cares for you supposed to let you know if not by reaching out?

I realized then that reaching out is a lost art.

We have a hard time performing it, and it is even harder to experience it.

We might have the wrong idea about what communication truly entails. I am aware that I think of myself as a huge ambassador of communication — I am a Libra sun after all, I see all sides and I am not afraid to use them. However, I might just be as delusional as we all are when we use this word. Just because you see all sides and try to cater to everybody’s feelings, or if you voice every single concern you have and treat it as an urgency, it doesn’t mean that you can properly communicate it all. And because somebody is comfortable around you, it is not a given that they won’t freeze you out and vanish into thick fog, leaving you with nothing but bitter-sweet memories.

I believe we truly want to avoid the moment when we have to own up to who we are and what we need, because it means that in order for such a moment to materialize we should voice it. We are all responsible for what we feel, and expecting others to anticipate it or just go along with it without any context or explanation, is just crude behaviour.

One can actually get the best friendship out of the worst fight. My mom’s best friend passed away four years ago and I was not the best of friends to her daughter, who is the first peer I have ever interacted with. We even designed our own tree house and made oaths to be buried next to each other. She has a thing for the macabre, and I have always been intense: we were bound to click. So you would imagine that she expected me to be there for her, but in the end I never checked up on her. I thought that just because she was not using my help, she mustn’t be needing it. A help she had to imagine, of course, because I never offered and I didn’t put myself in the position to help her. It wasn’t my proudest moment, I admit it. So basically I assumed everything was under control, while in reality she was unhinged and a slave of her own grief. One day I noticed that she had been ghosting me on multiple occasions, so I asked her if something was wrong and she wrote me this long and accusatory text, insisting that I had disappointed her too deeply and that at the time she didn’t have it in her to forgive me. I am sure I saw myself replying, but I was in such a trance, and I was so sure that any apology would feel empty to her, that I didn’t even focus too much on it. I felt miserable for a while, almost agonizing with guilt.

In hindsight, we wouldn’t have been able to have the very adult and considerate bond that we have now if we hadn’t picked up from that painful parenthesis in our lives, rather than indulge in an incomplete and dissatisfactory relationship that was based on frustration. I had to fight to get on her good side again, she had to update me on some painful events that took place while I wasn’t there; but only by going through this we were able to start fresh on equal footing. Frustration should never linger too much in the body and the only way to release it is through action.

The bad reputation that reaching out gets comes from the fact that it is more common nowadays to seek explanations to assign fault, rather than to navigate life and people with awareness. I wish I had the confidence of those people that haven’t texted or called in years and then want to make you feel bad for not having maintained the relationship open and alive. Sometimes I am even afraid of reaching out to this kind of people, because I know that I will get called out instead — and without deserving it. This is what I thought my friend L. was doing with me. This is what I was afraid that V. would take it as. Maybe that’s why people don’t demand explanations anymore, or are ashamed of offering theirs.

The difference is not even that insignificant: the confusion is just the result of an attempt to legitimize passivity. Of course you should be free to liberate yourself from a relationship that doesn’t serve you anymore, or to cuss out somebody for doing something wrong. Nevertheless, you cannot call out somebody for something you were expecting from them but you were not willing to do in the first place. Reaching out is not calling out, nor it means begging for someone to do the right thing; it is more about opportunity. It is about lending a hand, offering a space and time, giving the other the opportunity to get rid of something that might be too big — and why not: maybe even to act like the better person when we deserve to feel like one.

It is a shame, really, when pride gets in the way of genuine relationships and honourable endings. Pride dignifies misunderstanding, and we never should be able to sit comfortably with it. Everyone is responsible for communicating their own feelings, and it is their own business if they decide not to do it. For instance, what my friend V. did was not fair. She left me guessing, incomplete as if an arm decided out of the blue to detach from my bust. That does say more about her than me though. I should have been faithful to myself and reached out to her if I felt like it, without second-guessing. It was my need: I wanted an explanation, I wanted her to own up to it. Maybe I even needed to be sure that there was nothing we could do before giving up on a friendship that I was very fond of. Maybe I wanted to save myself from doubt and disappointment. Maybe I didn’t want to turn into a distrusting and detached friend when the next person would come by.

I’ve read many authors who denounce the fake intimacy in constant contact — fostered by social media relations — and the ensuing devaluation of impromptu expressions of appreciation. I would even call it a phobia of reaching out and being reached out to. We are so far nowadays from its meaning that it is easy to confuse it with a bad omen.

In my humble opinion, we basically want to forget as much as possible that our decisions have consequences. We dread the moment in which we will have to defend them, even to ourselves. We are just not comfortable with questioning ourselves anymore. We want to hold tight to our reasons and to our versions of a story so much that we leave a trail of cold cases behind us. And we think that if we hide them they won’t affect us, but consequences unravel regardless of whether we have our eyes on them or not. Most importantly, I believe that since true relationships call for intimacy and self-awareness, we are afraid of having to unveil sides of ourselves that we don’t want to deal with. It feels like our true, authentic selves are so deeply buried that any attempt to genuinely bond feels like an intrusion.

So we don’t reach out anymore. I have already lost plenty because of this. I will not lose myself too. Next time, I will ask the person what is wrong. I will be free from pride. I will be free from misunderstandings. I will summon the ending that I need and deserve. I won’t be passive. But, let’s face it, it will hurt for a while.

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