This isn’t Selfish— it’s Sacred

I almost didn’t send the message. Not because I didn’t mean it, but because I was afraid that speaking my truth would make me seem… selfish.

After all, he had opened up. He had shown me something tender and real. And when someone gives you that kind of glimpse, shouldn’t you just accept it without hesitation? Shouldn’t you hold it with reverence, and silence any part of yourself that might want something in return?

That’s what the old voice in my head whispered. The voice shaped by trauma. By people-pleasing. By a culture that teaches us to bleed quietly and thank the knife.

But I didn’t listen to that voice. Instead, I wrote this:

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The Message I Sent (and Still Stand By). —written in quiet grief, radical honesty, and the ruins of old patterns

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Thank you for what you shared. I know how hard it can be to open up like that, and I want you to know that I received your words with care and respect. I didn’t pause because you were vulnerable. Actually, it’s the opposite. I crave that kind of bone-deep authenticity. I demand it, because that’s how I show up too—raw, messy, and real. That’s what makes me feel safe and connected.

But there’s something I need to explain. Something about me that maybe isn’t visible from the outside.

When I let someone close, I don’t just give affection or attention. I drop a critical defense. I allow someone into the deepest parts of me, the ones that hold space for other people’s pain. It’s a part of me that, for reasons I still don’t fully understand, draws out what’s heavy in others. And when I do that, I don’t flinch. I stay. I help carry it. I help transmute it. I hold it safely until that person can breathe again.

It’s a kind of alchemy, I guess. Taking pain and turning it into something softer. But it takes something from me every time. And when I do that without reciprocity, when I give that part of myself to someone who isn’t able or ready to offer the same kind of care in return, it causes me an intense kind of hurt. The kind I can’t survive again.

And I also want to be honest with you. If I stay close, if I keep showing up, I will love you. And that love won’t be half-hearted or casual. That’s just who I am. But loving someone who doesn’t know if they’re ready to receive love… that can hurt. And I don’t want to keep reopening a wound if you’re still trying to figure things out.

So I need you to understand—it wasn’t your honesty that caused me to step back. It was the feeling that I had opened up my own soft places and didn’t know if you saw them, or wanted to hold them the way I was starting to hold yours.

If I stay, and if I love, I do it completely. That kind of love isn’t something I can compartmentalize. And while I understand we all move through hard seasons, I also need to know that if I make room in my life and heart for someone again, I’m not going to be left holding both of us on my own.

No pressure to respond right away. I just needed to say this clearly and honestly. I’m here, and I’m listening, if you want to talk. I’m sharing this because I care enough to be open with you—and I care about me enough to be clear about what I can and can’t carry.

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And here’s the thing I didn’t say out loud in that message:

He told me he was ready. Said he loved so much about me—my mind, my heart, the way I see the world. And then, just as quickly, he reversed course. Pulled away. Got quiet.

So I told him goodbye.

And that should’ve been the end.

But he begged me to stay. Said he needed me to show up. That he had to keep me in his life, he was in free fall already and my absence would make it worse.

Another version of me—the past version—wouldn’t have thought twice. She would’ve come running. She would’ve torn herself into tiny, shining pieces just to light his way. Even after he told her there was no light in him to return.

She would’ve tried to earn love by bleeding beautifully. Would’ve believed that maybe—just maybe—if she healed him enough, he’d find the strength to hold her back.

And the truth?

A part of me still wants to. That soft, loyal part that’s never stopped hoping someone might see her as worth saving too.

But this time….I chose me.

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When I re-read this message, days after sending it and with no response on the horizon, my brain tried to tell me I was being “too much.” Too intense. Too emotional. Too expectant. Too selfish.

So let’s be clear: This isn’t selfish. This is sacred.

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It is not selfish to say: “I need reciprocity.” “I crave depth.” “I will not carry both of us alone.” “I want to be loved in a way that doesn’t hurt.”

Selfish would have been saying: “I’m entitled to your energy, even if you’re struggling.” “Your vulnerability is inconvenient.” “I only care about my needs.” “If you can’t meet me where I am, you’re useless to me.”

Selfish is transactional. Demanding. Dismissive.

Sacred is honest. Boundaried. Brave.

Sacred says: I honor your truth. Here is mine. I’m willing to meet you in the deep, but I won’t drown myself just to keep you company.

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For those of us who were taught that self-sacrifice is the price of love, choosing to speak a hard truth feels radical. Terrifying, even. But it’s also the beginning of something real.

Not every connection can meet us in the deep. But that doesn’t mean we stop asking. It means we learn to stop calling our pain a “preference.” We stop mistaking self-erasure for strength. And we start honoring our own sacred truths, out loud.

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With Sugar and Rue,

Calliope in Ashes