For so long, I wanted to be one of those mysterious girls. You know the type, she only posts once a year on her WhatsApp status, her Instagram page is a barren aesthetic of quiet selfies and cryptic quotes. She doesn’t text back as early as possible. She doesn’t need closure to move on. She just... disappears and reinvents herself in private, becoming even more beautiful. I envied that restraint. It felt powerful. At least, that's what it usually looks like.

But oh well, that’s just not me.

I’m a communicator through and through. Words are my lifeline.

But here’s the thing, I only communicate my pain when the person who hurt me is someone I truly like and hold close. When that happens, I can’t just move on. I spiral. I rehearse conversations in my head. I say these conversations out loud when I'm in the shower. I think of it before bed, and it sometimes follows me into my dreams. I wonder if they know how badly they hurt me. I wait for them to notice the shift.

But if it’s someone else, someone on the outside of my heart’s circle. I’ll simply draw my boundaries, make my peace, and move on. No hard feelings, no dramatic exits. Just a clean cut. I’ve never struggled with putting people in their place, especially when disrespect is masked as humor. I’ll call it out politely, but firmly.

When it comes to grief, I’ve realized something important: pain doesn’t always have to be loud to be deep. Yes, some things cut more than others. But there’s no true scale for emotional pain. We all feel it differently, and what breaks one person may only bruise another. That’s okay.

I haven’t yet experienced the grief of losing someone close to death, but I’ve lost people in other ways. People I loved, trusted, or imagined forever with. Betrayal has a way of cracking you open in places you didn’t even know existed. It’s a quiet kind of death. A slow grief.

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One thing these experiences have taught me is that the heart will always try to protect itself, even if clumsily. When I’m hit with emotional pain, especially the kind that feels like a punch to the chest, my first instinct is to feel it. I don’t hide from it. I cry. Sometimes for hours. It’s messy and uncomfortable. And I don't necessarily like it. But if I must, then I will.

If it’s a kind of pain I can talk about, I do. I call someone I trust. I spill. I don’t always want to be the girl who cries when she’s hurt or who talks it out just to process it. But it’s almost like I can’t help it. That’s how I’m wired. I feel deeply, so I must express deeply.

But once that emotional wave crashes, I shut down. I don’t plan to; it just happens. Especially if I don't find soothing from the source of that pain. Like my brain disconnects to protect my heart. I dissociate. I go on autopilot. I become silent, not in a mysterious way, but in a “don’t ask me how I’m doing” way.

Grief feels different depending on where the pain is coming from. For me, betrayal grief, the kind where someone still exists, still posts, still texts other people, but not me, is one of the hardest. Because it’s not about absence. It’s about rejection. Replacement. Knowing you were once loved and now you’re not.

But over time, I’ve learned that healing isn’t always loud either and it is most definitely not linear AT ALL. Sometimes it’s in the mundane. Washing your face. Going to work. Laughing at something silly. Choosing not to stalk their profile today. Choosing to pray instead. Choosing to stay open to love, even when you want to shut the whole world out.

I think grief teaches us more about ourselves than any happy moment ever could. It teaches us what we value, what we long for, what we expect from others, and what we’re no longer willing to accept even if it breaks us to let it go.

And while I still dream of becoming the mysterious girl someday, lol, fingers crossed, I’ve learned to respect the girl I am now, the one who feels too much, cries too often, and speaks even when her voice trembles. Because mystery isn’t a strength if it costs you your healing.

At the end of the day, healing is how you find and connect back with your inner child.

In response to LOH #235

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