Hey, I forgot to introduce myself.
My name is Mara. I am twenty years old, emotionally observant, painfully self aware, and currently employed at a bookstore that smells like paper, dust, and unrealized dreams. My life is as quiet as it sounds, which is exactly why my mind makes so much noise.
People assume quiet lives are empty lives. They are wrong. Quiet lives are crowded. They are full of thoughts that never get spoken, feelings that never get named, questions that loop endlessly without answers. I have mastered the art of looking fine while unraveling internally. It is a skill I never asked for, but learned anyway.
I remember everything. Not birthdays or anniversaries, but tones, pauses, the way someone's energy changes mid sentence. I notice when affection becomes inconsistent and when effort turns conditional. I feel the shift long before it is acknowledged, and still I stay, hoping I imagined it.
I did not wake up one day emotionally dependent. It happened gradually. Through moments of being needed and then ignored. Through learning that love felt safer when I made myself useful. Through believing that if I was understanding enough, patient enough, quiet enough, someone would eventually choose me without being asked.
At twenty, I already know what it feels like to be an option. I know the exhaustion of over explaining my feelings only to be told they are too much. I know the embarrassment of shrinking my needs so someone else does not feel pressured to show up. I know how to convince myself that crumbs are meals if I am hungry enough.
The bookstore is where I pretend to be detached. I recommend novels about strong women and tragic love like I am not collecting both in my chest. I arrange books on shelves while rearranging my expectations of people. It is easier to organize fiction than feelings.
There is a version of me people meet. She is warm. She listens well. She laughs easily. She gives without keeping score. Then there is the version they never fully see. The one who goes home and replays conversations. The one who wonders why being chosen feels like winning a lottery she never bought a ticket for. The one who keeps asking herself when being low maintenance became synonymous with being low priority.
I love deeply, but quietly. I do not chase loudly. I wait. I hope. I give people the benefit of the doubt until doubt becomes heavier than hope. Then I tell myself I am being dramatic and wait some more.
What people do not understand is that I am not afraid of being alone. I am afraid of being present in someone's life and still feeling invisible. I am afraid of loving in grayscale while others get color. I am afraid of becoming so accustomed to absence that I forget what fullness feels like.
There are days I look at my reflection and try to figure out when I became this careful. When I started rehearsing honesty in my head instead of saying it out loud. When I learned to soften my disappointment so it would be easier for others to swallow.
I tell myself I am young. That I have time. That this sensitivity is not a flaw, just an untrained strength. But knowing something intellectually does not stop it from hurting emotionally. Awareness does not cancel longing.
I am learning though. Slowly. Awkwardly. I am learning that being understanding should not come at the cost of being understood. I am learning that consistency is not too much to ask for. I am learning that love should not feel like negotiation.
At twenty, I am still becoming. Still unlearning. Still tangled in gray. But this time, I am watching myself more closely. Not to judge. Just to notice.
And maybe that is where it starts.