I am too fluent now in telling the version that excludes the center

Dear Delyara, That is what secrecy has taught me. Fluency. I know how to speak around the center without making the absence obvious. Enough truth to feel authentic, enough omission to stay safe. It happens almost automatically now, which might be the saddest part. The split no longer even feels dramatic in the moment. But afterward, I can feel the cost. The distance from myself. The exhaustion of once again leaving a room only partially as me. I don’t know how long a person can live like that without feeling divided everywhere.