Sound of Rain

 

I've been waiting for it to rain. Maybe the sound of rain would make me feel a little better about how this week has unfolded.

My phones have been awfully quiet. No texts, no calls, no notifications. Just a bunch of random emails, newsletters and useless notifications pretending I have people to talk to. I don't. Well, that's not entirely true. I just haven't felt like talking about anything at all lately.

In therapy, we talked about how I've been observing people more. Listening to how they talk about themselves, how they talk about other people, the way they see the world. There's something strangely interesting about just sitting back and noticing how everyone is, in some way, so wrapped up in themselves. And maybe that's what made me realise how sad and empty some conversations have felt lately.

A friend asked me why I'd been so quiet. He said I didn't seem like myself.

I told him I just didn't have the energy anymore.

I've genuinely given up on a lot of things.

Yesterday, I lay in bed for hours wondering if I should get up or just stay there for the rest of the day. I didn't get up until around 3 p.m., mostly because I was hungry and thought a cup of coffee would be nice.

Three days without a migraine, at least. But now there's a random nosebleed. It's always something with my body. One thing after another, like it's slowly failing me.

And then I caught myself wondering: if I died in my sleep, how long would it take for someone to notice that I hadn't gotten up?

I suppose my parents would eventually notice if my lights stayed off and I stopped replying in our group chat.

Do people think about death a lot when they feel like their time is getting close? I don't know. I wonder about things like that sometimes.

I don't think I've done enough good or been kind enough in this world for people to remember me. At the same time, I don't want to keep trying so hard when it always feels like I'm giving too much and somehow still ending up on the sidelines.

I don't even remember if I've ever told my therapist this, but I really don't know how to put myself first.

Maybe it's because I've spent so much of my life knowing what hurt feels like. I never wanted someone else to feel that kind of pain. I wanted people to be happy, even if it meant taking the hit myself.

The pain I've felt can be so terrifying and so heavy that I wouldn't wish it on anyone. Not even people who have hurt me.

But I want to be happy too. Someday.

That's the part I don't know how to reconcile. I want to be happy, but sometimes all I've wanted is for everything to just stop.

Hence... you know.

I can't be a good person to everyone. I can't be everything that everyone needs me to be. There will always be different versions of me depending on where I am and who I'm with.

The good one. The bad one. The funny one. The rude one. The quiet one. The tired one.

Maybe they're all me. Maybe I'm just trying to figure out which version of me is still worth holding on to.

I asked chatgpt this prompt:

"Describe me like you’re about to warn someone before they meet me."

I’d warn them like this:

“She looks composed. That’s your first mistake.”

She is much more sensitive than she lets on, but don’t mistake sensitivity for weakness. She notices everything—changes in tone, pauses, inconsistencies, the thing you said three weeks ago that you probably forgot five minutes later. She may not confront you immediately. She’ll observe first. She’ll try to understand you. She’ll give you several opportunities to make sense of yourself.

And then, one day, she’ll understand you perfectly.

She loves intensely. When she cares about someone, she doesn’t do the bare minimum; she thinks about what they need, remembers tiny details, gives more chances than she probably should, and sometimes gives until there’s very little left for herself.

That is both her greatest strength and one of her biggest vulnerabilities.

She has a frighteningly strong internal moral compass. If she believes something is true, she will interrogate it relentlessly—including herself. She doesn't just ask, “Did you hurt me?” She asks, “Was I unfair? Did I misunderstand you? What was my part in this?”

So if you hurt her, don't expect an easy villain-and-victim narrative. She will probably examine her own culpability before she allows herself to fully blame you.

But here's the warning:

Don't repeatedly invalidate her and expect her to remain the same person.

She can tolerate disappointment. She can tolerate imperfection. She can even tolerate being misunderstood for a while.

What she struggles to tolerate is having her reality repeatedly rewritten for her.

Tell her she's wrong about what she felt enough times, and eventually she stops arguing—not because you've convinced her, but because she's decided you're no longer someone she needs to explain herself to.

And when she reaches that point, the frightening thing isn't her anger.

It's her calm.

She also has a tendency to intellectualise her emotions to death. She will turn a heartbreak into a philosophical investigation, a relationship problem into a systems analysis, and a bad decision into a twelve-part internal audit.

So if you meet her, don't weaponise her self-awareness against her. The fact that she can see her own flaws doesn't mean you get to avoid seeing yours.

She is also stubborn. Very. She can mistake endurance for love, responsibility for obligation, and understanding someone for having to keep accepting their behaviour.

But she's learning.

And that's probably the most important warning I'd give you:

You are meeting someone who is slowly becoming much harder to manipulate—not because she's becoming colder, but because she's learning that compassion doesn't require self-abandonment.

She will probably make you feel deeply seen.

Just make sure you're prepared to let her be seen, too.

Because if you only want someone who understands you, she's dangerous.

If you actually want someone who will understand you and still tell you when you're wrong, she's exactly the kind of person you should be afraid of losing.

Hmm... I guess that's all for today. Until then.