on love that doesn't ask you to shrink.

i didn't know what love that didn't ask me to shrink felt like until i experienced it. i thought i did. i thought all the love i'd had before was the right kind and i was just too much for it.

it turns out i wasn't too much. i was the right amount for the wrong people.

expansive love doesn't look like grand gestures. it looks like: you can say the hard thing and i will still be here. it looks like: i notice when you're being quiet and i ask. it looks like: i want you to take up the space you deserve, even if that space includes things that don't include me.

it's uncomfortable at first, being loved like that. when you've spent years making yourself smaller, being given room feels suspicious. you keep waiting for the condition. for the fine print. for the moment when the person reveals that the expansion was temporary and the shrinking was always required.

sometimes the condition never comes. sometimes the room is just room.

i'm still learning to live in it. still catching myself apologising for taking up space i was explicitly given. but i'm getting better.

i think that's what love is supposed to do. make you more of yourself, not less.