Through the Fog

Tag: inner dialogue

  • Get What I Deserve

    I used to think

    getting what I deserve

    meant punishment.

    Like life was keeping score

    in some quiet ledger—

    every mistake inked in permanent,

    every failure waiting

    to be returned to me

    with interest.

    So I braced for it.

    For the fall.

    For the loss.

    For the moment

    everything I touched

    would finally reflect back

    what I believed about myself.

    Not enough.

    Too much.

    Hard to hold.

    Easy to leave.

    I called that honesty.

    I called that accountability.

    But it was just

    familiar cruelty

    wearing my voice.

    Because the truth is—

    I’ve already paid

    for things I didn’t deserve.

    Stayed too long

    where I was shrinking.

    Apologized

    for taking up space.

    Carried weight

    that was never mine.

    And still,

    some part of me

    thought balance meant

    more suffering.

    Like peace

    had to be earned

    through exhaustion.

    But maybe

    getting what I deserve

    isn’t about pain at all.

    Maybe it looks like

    rest without guilt.

    Love without proving.

    Being met

    without begging to be understood.

    Maybe it’s waking up

    and not immediately

    putting myself on trial.

    Maybe it’s this—

    learning that I am not a debt

    waiting to be collected.

    And for the first time,

    when I say

    “I want what I deserve,”

    I don’t mean consequences.

    I mean

    something gentle

    finally staying.

  • Perceived Abandonment

    It’s strange how loneliness can make you believe you’ve been abandoned, even when no one’s gone anywhere.

    It creeps in quietly — not as an event, but as a feeling.

    A hollow shift inside the chest, a soft whisper that says they don’t care anymore, even when they do.

    I know it’s not true.

    But in the moments when silence stretches too long,

    when messages go unread and days pile up in quiet stacks,

    it feels like proof.

    Proof that I’m too much, or not enough, or somehow both at once.

    It’s the oldest wound — that fear of being left behind.

    Not just by people, but by life itself.

    You start to think maybe everyone else got the map,

    and you were born to wander lost.

    I’ve learned that perceived abandonment isn’t about others leaving.

    It’s about the part of me that still believes love is temporary,

    that care has an expiration date,

    that any warmth will eventually fade.

    So I brace myself for endings that haven’t even begun.

    I pull away before anyone has a chance to.

    And then I call it loneliness, when really it’s just fear —

    the quiet kind that pretends it’s truth.

    But loneliness doesn’t mean I’ve been abandoned.

    It means I’m here, still longing, still feeling, still alive enough to miss something.

    And maybe that’s not weakness.

    Maybe that’s the part of me still hoping

    someone will stay long enough to prove my heart wrong.