I miss having one place where I arrive unedited

Dear Delyara, A friendship where I do not monitor the warmth, measure the timing, reduce my emotional size, or wonder whether I have leaned too far in. A place where my body doesn’t tighten slightly before replying. A place where I don’t have to decide which version of myself is safest or easiest to send. I have had that before. Maybe that’s why the absence of it feels so loud now. Because once you’ve known what emotional ease feels like, carefulness becomes impossible to romanticise for very long.