The cost of Kindness

They say kindness is free. But I’ve paid for it in silence. In sleepless nights and swallowed words. In the ache of being misunderstood by the very mouths I fed.

I gave without ledger, without pause, without asking if I had anything left. Because love, I thought, was meant to be unconditional. Even when it came with conditions.

I’ve been the soft landing for people who never learned to fall gently. I’ve been the open door for those who never knocked. And still, I smiled. Still, I stayed.

But kindness without boundaries is not kindness. It is self-erasure. It is the quiet death of a voice that once roared.

I met someone once— a child, maybe, or a mirror. She gave like I did. Bright-eyed. Open-hearted. And I watched the world take from her like it took from me.

I wanted to warn her. To say: Protect your softness. Guard your light. Kindness is sacred— but it is not infinite.

Now, I give differently. Not less. Just wiser. I say no when I mean it. I rest without guilt. I love without losing myself.

Because the cost of kindness should never be your soul.

And when I see her— the child, the mirror, the muse— I remember why I began. Her light reminds me that kindness is not weakness, but a choice. A sacred one. And the cost is worth it only when it leads us back to love that includes ourselves.