I still think about how long I stayed quiet in places that were hurting me

Dear Delyara, I stayed quiet because I wanted peace, because I thought patience was maturity, because I didn’t want to be the difficult one, because I kept hoping the room would become kinder if I remained careful enough in it. Sometimes I was protecting something real. Other times I was just disappearing slowly and calling it wisdom. That’s the part I regret. Not that I was soft. Not that I tried. That I let my own reality become negotiable for too long in places that were never planning to meet me halfway. I’m trying not to turn regret into self-hatred. But it still has teeth sometimes.