I Am Tired of Making Myself Smaller

Day 212 – June 23, 2026

There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from constantly trying not to be too much. Too loud. Too ambitious. Too emotional. Too opinionated. Too visible. Too interested. Too sure of yourself. Too unsure of yourself. Basically the assignment is impossible, but women have been handed it for generations and apparently we are all expected to turn it in anyway.

I am tired of it. Not in some grand revolutionary sense. I am just genuinely exhausted by the amount of editing a person can do to herself before she even enters a room. Should I say this? Should I tone that down? Should I act less excited? Should I pretend I do not care as much? Should I make the idea smaller so nobody thinks I am ridiculous for believing in it?

Fuck that.

I care. A lot. About writing. About Wild Poise. About what it could become. About the work I put my name on. About whether people connect with it. About whether I can build something meaningful out of all this weirdness in my head. That does not make me desperate. It makes me invested. There is a difference.

I think I spent a long time learning how to make myself easier for other people to hold. More agreeable. Less complicated. Less intense. Less likely to make somebody uncomfortable. Then life went ahead and made me complicated anyway. Rude, but useful. Because after everything that has happened, I do not have much appetite left for pretending to be smaller than I am.

I do not mean important. I mean honest.

There is a version of me that wants a lot from life. She wants to write. She wants to be read. She wants to build something. She wants to be respected. She wants to make money from the things she is good at. She wants to help create something bigger than herself. She wants to work with smart, interesting, talented people. She wants beauty. She wants joy. She wants safety. She wants room.

That is not excessive. That is a life.

And I am done acting like wanting a full one is embarrassing. Maybe that is another way I am changing. Not louder for the sake of being loud. Just less edited. Less apologetic. Less inclined to make myself palatable before I even know who is at the table.

There is freedom in that. Also danger.

People like you better when you are easy. But easy is expensive. I know that now. So I would rather be clear. Clear about what I want. Clear about what I will not tolerate. Clear about what matters to me.

That does not mean I have everything figured out. God no. Half the time I am making it up as I go and hoping nobody notices. But I am starting to trust my instincts more. That matters. Because I spent too much time doubting myself while giving entirely too much credit to people who did not deserve it.

Never again. Or at least less often. I am trying to leave room for improvement.

Chaos in one hand. Grace in the other.

And significantly less interest in shrinking to fit.