I finally stopped reading old messages when I felt lonely at night

Dear Delyara, When the house went quiet and my mood dropped, I would sometimes go back. Old messages from people I missed, people I had loved, people who had once chosen me, people who had once made me feel central, wanted, seen. I told myself I was remembering. Often I was reopening. It never left me comforted. Only rawer. I think loneliness makes archaeologists of us if we’re not careful. We go digging in old emotional ruins hoping to find warmth still alive there, and instead we usually come away with sharper edges and a night made harder by comparison between what was and what is. A few weeks ago, I deleted them. Not out of anger. Out of respect. Because some forms of comfort are not comfort anymore. They are self-harm wearing memory’s face. Deleting them did not make me magically healed. It did remove one way I kept re-wounding myself in private and calling it tenderness. That matters.