Sometimes I grieve the self who thought she had to settle downward to stay safe

Dear Delyara, Not necessarily about one person or one choice, but about a whole posture I used to take toward life. Less wanting. Smaller hope. Lower standards presented to myself as maturity. A kind of protective settling that looked practical from the outside and felt like shrinking from the inside. I know why I did it. That doesn’t stop the sorrow. There is something very tender and very painful about looking back and realizing you were negotiating against your own life-force in order to feel less exposed to disappointment.