You gave so much of yourself away so gracefully that it barely looked like loss. It looked like love. Like generosity. Like being someone people could count on. And it was those things. But underneath all of it, quietly and without ceremony, you were learning to make yourself smaller so everything around you could feel bigger. To disappear into usefulness. Into understanding. Into being whatever the moment required of you. And you were so good at it that almost no one noticed. Including you. What's shifting now is not hardening. Not withdrawal. Not selfishness. It's the realization that you were never meant to exist only in relation to what others needed from you. Your presence is not something to be endlessly drawn from. It is a life meant to be fully lived. You are allowed to receive. To rest. To take up space without earning it through service. This recalibration is honesty. The difference between performing care and embodying it. Between surviving connection and actually experiencing it. You deserve to be here fully. That isn't new information. It's just the first time it's felt safe enough to be true.