LOVE WITHOUT LOSING YOURSELF There comes a moment where your heart must learn what your spirit has known all along you can't force someone to choose you, love you, or meet you where you're willing to go. You can crave connection and still refuse to chase. You can miss them and still not return. You can hold love in your heart, and still walk away when it costs your peace. Because self-respect is a language too. And when you've spent years silencing your needs just to keep another close you learn that closeness without reciprocity is just loneliness in disguise. So you detach not from love, but from the version of you that begged for the bare minimum. You detach to protect your softness. You detach to choose yourselt. That is the quiet, courageous art of loving without abandoning yourself.