I Still Want Approval

Dear Delyara, I wish I didn’t. I do. One sentence of praise can lift me too high. One note of disappointment can drop me too fast. I know how old this is. I know what it says about unfinished hunger. I know that the people I still want approval from are often the very people who taught me to question myself too much in the first place. Still, the body wants what it wants. Some younger part of me still reaches. Still hopes. Still hurts when it doesn’t come. That hurts in a humiliating way, because I know better. And yet knowing better has not removed the ache.