I Had To Stop Loving People So Hard.

For most of my life, I thought loving someone meant carrying things for them.

If someone I loved was struggling, my instinct was to get underneath it.

To absorb what felt too heavy.
To make it smaller.
Softer.
More manageable.

Anything so they didn't have to feel the full weight of it.

And I was good at it.

Maybe too good.

For a long time, I thought that was one of the best things about me.

I loved hard.
I showed up.
I protected the people who were mine.

What could possibly be wrong with that?

Then I realized something I really didn't want to admit.

Sometimes there was control hiding inside my love.

Not the kind that looks like control.

The kind that looks like helping.

Protecting.

Taking care of everyone.

The kind that lets you tell yourself you're doing it entirely for them, when somewhere underneath it is this quiet belief that maybe they can't handle what happens if you don't step in.

That one hurt a little.

Because I never wanted to control the people I loved.

I wanted to keep them safe.

But I'm starting to understand that those aren't always the same thing.

Sometimes loving someone means resisting every instinct in me that wants to reach in and make it better.

And that is really hard for me.

Not because I can't handle the hard parts.

I'll stand beside someone I love through almost anything.

It's the standing there without reaching in that gets me.

Watching someone I love struggle when every part of me is already figuring out how to help. How to protect them. How to make it hurt less.

My instinct is always, give it to me. I'll carry some of it.

But maybe love doesn't always need me to carry.

Maybe sometimes it needs me to trust.

To trust the people I love with their own lives.

To believe they can carry things I wish they never had to carry.

To stop confusing I would do anything for you with I have to do everything for you.

I don't want to love anyone less.

I don't think I could if I tried.

I just want to love them without holding on so tightly.

Without needing to stand between them and every hard thing.

Without making their pain mine just so I can feel like I'm protecting them from it.

And maybe the strangest part is that when I stopped trying to carry everything for the people I love...

I didn't feel farther away from them.

I felt closer.

Maybe because for the first time, I wasn't saying I know what you need.

I was saying something much harder for me.

I trust you.

And if you need me, I'm right here.