Still Here, Even When I’m Not Interesting

Day 21 — December 14, 2025

Today I wasn’t insightful. I wasn’t poetic. I didn’t have a revelation waiting politely at the bottom of my coffee cup.

I didn’t crack anything open. I didn’t fall apart. I didn’t stitch myself back together in some neat, inspirational way. There was no big feeling demanding airtime, no sharp edge begging to be explored. And honestly? A part of me kept waiting for something to happen just so I’d know what to do with myself.

Nothing did.

The old version of me would’ve panicked at that. She would’ve started narrating, analyzing, reaching for meaning like it was a life raft. She believed that if she wasn’t processing, she was failing. If she wasn’t producing insight, she was wasting time. If she wasn’t interesting, she was disappearing.

Today, I didn’t do any of that.

I existed. Plainly. Quietly. Without trying to turn it into content or growth or proof that I’m “doing healing right.” I moved through the day like a person instead of a project. And that alone felt new.

There’s something unsettling about letting yourself be unremarkable when you’re used to surviving loudly. Trauma trains you to believe that presence must be justified. That rest needs a reason. That staying only counts if you can explain it.

But today, I stayed without explanation.

I did small things. Normal things. I lost track of time. I forgot what I was about to do and didn’t spiral about it. I let thoughts come and go without interrogating them. I didn’t reach for depth just to prove I still have it.

And maybe that’s the point I’ve been circling without realizing it: I don’t need to be compelling to be here.

I don’t need a breakthrough. I don’t need a lesson. I don’t need to make my pain eloquent or my healing impressive. I’m allowed to take up space even when I’m quiet. Even when I’m neutral. Even when the day doesn’t give me anything shiny to hold.

There’s a strange kind of strength in that. Choosing presence without spectacle. Letting yourself be ordinary after so much intensity. Trusting that your worth doesn’t evaporate the moment you stop narrating your own survival.

So today, I wasn’t interesting. I wasn’t profound. I wasn’t anything you’d underline.

But I was here.

And for where I’ve been, and what I’ve lived through, that feels like its own quiet kind of victory.

Chaos in one hand. Grace in the other. And me staying, even when no one is watching