I miss being somewhere I don’t have to keep translating my own state

Dear Delyara, A place where “I’m tired” doesn’t need decoding. Where “I’m okay” can be heard properly for whether it means okay, or not really okay, or I don’t have the energy to explain okay. Where my quieter moods are not mistaken for anger and my need for softness is not mistaken for fragility. That kind of being-known feels sacred to me now. And because it feels sacred, its absence is not a small absence. A lot of my loneliness is not about numbers of people. It is about accuracy.