I Still Prepare to Be Misread Faster Than I Prepare to Be Loved Properly

Dear Delyara, That instinct exhausts me. A serious face, a delayed reply, a shift in tone, a silence where I expected warmth — and immediately some old part of me begins organising itself around damage prevention. I soften. I explain. I pre-apologise. I make myself easier to forgive before anyone has even asked for forgiveness. I know where that comes from. Too many years of rooms where misunderstanding arrived faster than care did. Too many situations where I had to defend my motives, tone, tiredness, needs, or pain before anyone was willing to meet them with fairness. Too many versions of me shaped by the emotional cost of being read too harshly by people who had more power than tenderness in the room. What hurts is how current life still pays for that history. I do not enter every room equally. Some part of me is still braced, still editing, still reaching for self-protection before simple human presence. That is such a tiring way to exist. And the worst part is how polite it can look from outside.