Most of my suffering has a single author, and it signs its work "me." The constant managing of an image — how I'm seen, what I'm owed, who I am — is exhausting, and I volunteered for all of it.
The weight of being someone
Being somebody means there is always something to protect. Every slight lands, every comparison stings, because there is a self standing in the doorway taking the hits. Set that self down for a moment and the same hits pass through empty air.
Peace is not winning the argument. It's no longer being the one who needs to.
Smaller, and freer
Becoming nobody isn't erasure — it's relief. The less I insist on being someone in particular, the more room there is for what is actually happening. Zero isn't where I disappear. It's where I finally stop getting in the way.