I just really would love to find a place for myself in the world you know? Sometime or universe where I'm main girl energy.
Maybe an episode where ....
Oh trash that
I don't even live in the world to begin with š
> Dear Diaree,
I think I've always beenā¦ aware.
Not in the way people talk about it.
Justāaware of feelings. Of people. Of the way something small could sit inside me for too long and refuse to leave.
When I was younger, it showed up as little things.
Like how I noticed certain boys more than others.
The pretty ones. The ones who smiled easily, or laughed like they didn't have anything heavy sitting on their chest.
I didn't understand it then.
I just knew I liked looking at them.
Liked the way my chest felt tight and light at the same time.
I was somewhere between being a child andā¦ something else I didn't have a name for yet.
And maybe I saw things I wasn't supposed to see too early.
Maybe I understood certain parts of the world before I was ready.
But I don't think that's an excuse.
It justā¦ is.
Everything changed when I got into high school.
Not just any school.
A big one. The kind that felt like its own world.
Sydney.
Sometimes I still can't believe I ended up there.
Walking through those gates for the first time felt like stepping into a life that didn't fully belong to me yet.
Too many people.
Too many voices.
Too many versions of who I could become.
I remember holding onto myself in a way no one could see.
Because on the outside, I looked fine.
Just another girl starting over.
But insideā¦
I think that was when I started drifting.
Not away from people.
Justā¦ somewhere else.
Somewhere quieter.
Somewhere that felt like mine.
My first day of high school felt like a movie.
Not the dramatic kind.
The soft kindā¦ where everything just flows and you don't even realize you're smiling the whole time.
I went to school by myself.
No one holding my hand.
No one watching over me.
Just me.
And for the first time in my life, I feltā¦ free.
Like I had finally stepped into a version of myself that wasn't being supervised.
I liked that feeling.
Maybe a little too much.
People noticed me.
Boys mostly.
"Hi."
"Hey."
"What's your name?"
Even older ones.
I didn't expect that.
But I didn't hate it either.
It felt like I had walked into a space and somehowā¦ the space responded.
The boys in my class were the funniest.
They actually gathered around me at some pointā
like I was something to be won.
Saying things, teasing, trying to impress me.
And I just stood there, pretending not to enjoy it as much as I did.
Because I did enjoy it.
The attention.
The thrill.
The feeling of being seen.
But that was as far as it went.
Because no matter how much I smiled,
no matter how much I played alongā¦
I knew something they didn't.
I didn't want anything real.
Not like that.
I didn't want hands to hold.
I didn't want to be called someone's girlfriend.
I didn't want to belong to anyone in a way that could be touched or seen.
Everything I feltā
it lived in my head.
That's where it was safer.
Better.
Mine.
My first week wasā¦ nice.
Light. Easy.
Like I was trying on a new life just to see if it fit.
But it didn't take long for me to retreat again.
I started talking less.
Watching more.
People around me got louder.
Their conversationsā¦ messier.
Words thrown around like they didn't mean anything.
I understood them.
More than they probably realized.
But I didn't want to be part of it.
I didn't want to sit in a circle where everything was said out loud so carelessly.
So I stepped back.
Quietly.
No one really notices when you do it slowly.
And the funny thing isā¦
even while I was distancing myself from all of thatā
I knew my thoughts weren't any cleaner.
Maybe even worse.
Justā¦ hidden better.
And maybe that's when it started.
Not the silence.
I've always had that.
But the place I go to when the world gets too loud.
The place where everything feels quieterā¦
softerā¦
and a little too real for something that isn't supposed to exist.