Today, I’m inviting you into my home.
From the outside, you see flowers in wide windows and neatly hung laundry.
But for the first time, I’m inviting you inside. Into a house no one has ever entered before.
I don’t know why I’m letting you in.
Maybe because you said, “Your pain doesn’t scare me.”
Maybe because today, I can’t lie anymore.
Step in gently.
It might seem dark.
I haven’t turned on the lights in years.
I forgot where the switch is.
I’ve lived here like a stranger. Or better said, like a long-term guest.
In the hallway, you’ll meet fear.
Fear of being seen.
Fear of being rejected after being seen.
It sits quietly, like a skinny cat, but with sharp claws.
The living room…
The living room is filled with beautifully upholstered, empty chairs.
Each one for someone who left.
On the wooden table, there’s a plate of unsaid longing.
Cold. Hardened.
In the corner, an old armchair.
That’s where I spent countless nights asking myself:
“If I start loving myself just as I am, what will be left to fix?”
(I didn’t know how to answer, so I fell asleep with the question in my gut.)
Come further.
In the kitchen, it smells earthy.
That’s where I cooked my guilt:
The guilt of not being enough,
The guilt of wanting too much,
The guilt of saying “no” when I should’ve said “yes,”
and “yes” when I should’ve said “leave”.
All sprinkled with shame instead of salt.
On the fridge, I’ve stuck up questions:
– What really keeps me up at night?
– Where do I belong?
– What is my path?
– Who am I when I’m not achieving anything?
I still don’t have answers. But I leave them there.
Writing isn’t like food. It doesn’t have to be ready.
The bathroom is the place of shame.
I’d rather you not go in there.
You’ll see all the things I’ve wanted but was too ashamed to say out loud.
I didn’t wash them.
I haven’t washed myself clean of them.
They’re there, piled up, one on top of the other, in the dirty laundry basket.
In the bedroom, the little girl in me is still healing.
The one who was taught to be quiet, to sit nicely, to not disturb.
She sleeps with a notebook under her pillow.
She writes dreams in invisible ink.
I’m telling you all this so you know what kind of house my soul is.
And that writing isn’t the beautiful furniture,
it’s the dust beneath it.
Here, no advice is given.
Here, no one rearranges someone else’s chairs.
You just sit.
You look.
And you say:
“Thank you for letting me in and showing me the inside. I have a house like this too.”