Don’t Hoard Yourself.
For people who don’t need this explained.
As the posts start to appear and people rattle off their 2025 accomplishments, I am saying that the biggest thing I did this year was become someone I am ready to share.
I feel complete enough to give some of myself away. To share what I have been working on while I have been working on me.
It is not easy to live this way or to have people know you do. There is confusion that because I am built strong, I can take more emotional punches. Not true. I feel everything deeply and make no apologies for it.
Knowing what I want, and what I have to give, means saying no to other things and people I might want too. That is where sacrifice comes in. That is where most of us fail. Letting go to get.
This year, I had a couple of short lived romances and crash outs. I collected data on these experiences all the way. I wrote about them too, and eventually those stories will pay my bills. Nothing lost, only gained, because I dared to give love away. What some like to bury, I like to dig up and investigate closer, with my bare hands, to see what the particles of my suffering, love, rage, and sensitivity are made of. What they taste like, raw.
I want to share all of this in friendships and in romance, maybe even at the same time, maybe even business when the opportunity presents. But finding people willing to meet you at that table, one of deep personal truth, is rare.
The last boyfriend I had said he was not sure if he liked himself. That was my sign to leave. Maybe that is why he protected himself from feeling anything deeper than he had language for. I get it. But not my cross to bear. I told him to figure that out, the part about not liking himself, because why would I want something he does not, himself. “Sounds like a you problem,” I said before I left him for good. He was not a love story but a lesson: because I can change, and am changing, I assume others can too. This was wrong.
You cannot change people. So you change your access points to you instead. Letting someone go makes space to be more of who you are. It really is that easy, and also that hard.
Love in any form fails because we create lists of what we want instead of thinking about what we have to offer. The best parts of yourself are what you should share, not protect. This is not advice. Build your resilience, not your walls, to match the love you can stand and want. Eventually people will not want to climb to get over your barriers, and that will be on you.
Take big bites out of love when you have it. Too many of us are snacking on meals when we should be taking huge chunks into our mouths, salivating, burping, drooling, chewing with our mouths wide open while laughing. Not consumption, but what fills you.
When you give away what is good, the feeling is better than happiness. Bigger and more sustaining. It is being fulfilled.