There is little more disheartening and isolating than realizing that everyone can see it, everyone can say the right thing, everyone can do their best… yet it turns out they only think they understand it, because they only think they understand you.

They’re seeing the Badness and what it’s doing today, but they don’t grasp that it has been doing its thing for a long, long time. They have no idea the changes it’s made, the defenses it’s rendered obsolete, nor the weaknesses and strengths it’s exposed. It’s a newly acknowledged reality for them, but it has long lived deep inside you, in your bones.

Your true reactions aren’t even an approximation of the expectation, so you end up muting them, creating more distance as you drift ever further from the definitional shore. And it won’t stop until the seas calm and you can send up a signal that lets them know where to find you.

Assuming you want to be found.

Sometimes lost girls find themselves.