CHAPTER NINE
“When another blames you or hates you…..go to their soul…..you will realize there is no need to be racked with anxiety that they should hold any particular opinion about you. But you should still be kind to them.”
Dear Marcus,
Maybe people don’t always mean to hurt you. Maybe they just don’t know how to handle softness. Some only know how to stick around when things are loud and exciting, not when it all settles into something steady and real.
I used to see silence as punisment. A late reply meant distance. A shift in tone meant rejection. But as i’ve grown. I’m learning to look past just what people do, and start asking “why”. What they’ve been through. What shaped their face of closeness. What made them back away when love got softer, or leave the moment it asked to stay. Sometimes the walls they build were never about me in the first place. And weirdly, that’s been kind of comforting.
There’s someone who still pops into my head every now and then. Not because i miss him, not like that, but because i still wonder. It was so easy for him to let things go quiet, to leave them unfinished. Like i was a chapter he closed without reading to the end. And sometimes i can’t help but think, was that just who he was ? or just who he was with me ?
And yet, but i’m not carrying that anger anymore. I don’t even need the answer. I think that’s one of the quiet gifts or growing up, learning not to take everything so personally. Not trying your worth to the way someone chooses to leave. I’ve come to understand that some people just aren’t meant to stay, and that’s not always a reflection of me.
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Sometimes, the most loving thing you can do is to stop trying to make sense of someone else’s unfinished story. To stop building a home out of something that was never meant to stay. Not for them, but for your own peace.
At some point, i figured out there’s no point in hanging on to how someone sees me, especially when they never stuck around long enough to actually know how i am. And honestly, what’s the use in trying to rewrite a story that was never mine to wrap up ?
Understanding, i’ve learned, is more like loosening your grip one tiny bit at a time, not dropping everything at once. And forgiving ? it’s not always about big speeches or grand gestures. Sometimes it’s just a quiet choice you make in your own heart. A way of setting yourself free without expecting anything back.
There’s a kind of strength, i think, in accepting that some things will stay unresolved. In not chasing closure just to move on. In choosing kindness, not because you’re tired of carrying the weight of resentment.
That’s the kind of letting go i’m learning now, not loud or dramatic, but soft. Almost invisble. The kind where you stop needing anything to be different than it is.
So tell me, Marcus…
What does it even mean to forgive someone who never asked ?
And how do you keep being kind without shrinking yourself down ?
🎵 mehro — perfume
