There are days when I wonder whether I always have to be the strong one.

Is it alright to feel weak?

To miss someone so deeply that tears arrive without permission?

To want someone to simply sit beside me and say nothing?

Or do we spend so much of our lives pretending we are alright that we eventually begin believing it ourselves?

What surprises me most is not that life has been difficult.

It is how often I have walked through my hardest moments alone.

The world around me has changed in countless ways over the years.

People have come.

People have gone.

Life has continued moving.

Yet this quiet longing…

to be held,

to be understood,

to not always carry everything by myself—

has remained almost unchanged.