Sacred Sunday | When Boundaries Are Uncomfortable

I am not an asshole.

I am a person who stayed flexible too long because I cared.

I adapted in crisis.

I carried uncertainty quietly.

I absorbed costs — financial, emotional, energetic — so others wouldn’t have to feel the instability I was holding behind the scenes.

I blurred my own boundaries in the name of kindness.

I postponed my own needs in the name of continuity.

I chose relationship over protection — again and again.

That wasn’t weakness.That was leadership under pressure.

What’s happening now isn’t me becoming cold. It’s me becoming sustainable.

Some people will experience my clarity as loss.

Some will mistake structure for selfishness.

Some will feel entitled to the version of me that over-gave.

That doesn’t make their story true.

I don’t need to prove my integrity.

I don’t need to keep explaining my intentions.

I don’t need to keep paying for decisions made in survival mode.

I am allowed to correct course without apology.

I am allowed to name reality without softening it to protect others’ comfort.

I am allowed to stop being the shock absorber.

If I’ve been unfair to anyone, it’s been to myself. And that ends here.

I choose steadiness over sacrifice.

Clarity over guilt.

Sustainability over self-erasure.

Nothing about this makes me unkind.

It makes me human.

Subscribe to Elle's Writing