the quiet heartbreak of trying to shift an unmoving soul

some truths don’t crash into me—they arrive like a slow bruise, deepening day by day until i can’t pretend not to feel them anymore. and this one… this one has been settling in my bones for a long time: i cannot move someone who has chosen not to budge. it doesn’t matter how much i care, how much softness i offer, how much truth i spill with trembling hands. if they want to stay exactly where they are, rooted in their comfort or their fear or their pride, nothing i do will make them shift an inch.

and god, that’s hard for someone like me.
because i love in motion.
i heal in motion.
i grow in motion.

i’m the kind of woman who bends, stretches, rearranges her own internal architecture trying to meet someone halfway. i show up with heart and clarity and honesty—even when it stings. i listen deeper than people expect. i try to understand the angles they don’t show. i carry more hope than is probably healthy. i give chance after chance because i believe people can rise if they want to.

but that’s the key, isn’t it?
they have to want to.

and when they don’t…
the weight of trying to love someone into movement becomes a quiet kind of suffocation. it wears on the spirit. it curls exhaustion into the edges of my heart. it makes me question my own worth—why i keep standing in the doorway waiting for footsteps that never come, why i keep lowering my voice hoping they’ll actually hear it, why i keep shrinking my needs into something soft and palatable just to avoid another emotional shutdown.

i’ve twisted myself into shapes i shouldn’t have tried to fit.
i’ve held hope for two  people more times than i’ll ever admit out loud.
and i’ve carried guilt that was never mine to hold.

but the truth—the one i’m finally letting root inside me—is simple in a way that hurts: i can’t rescue someone who refuses to rescue themselves. i can’t pull someone forward who is determined to stay wrapped in their shadows. i can’t ignite growth in a heart that has no interest in opening. love isn’t a crowbar. patience isn’t a pry tool. my warmth is a gift, not a lever.

and the hardest part isn’t their stillness.
it’s letting go of the belief that i somehow failed because they didn’t move.

so i’m choosing something different now.
i’m choosing to face my own sunlight again.
i’m choosing to stop dimming myself beside people who prefer the dark.
i’m choosing to honor the woman i’m becoming—
the one who deserves reciprocity, effort, softness, and motion.

i don’t have to beg for movement.
i don’t have to convince someone to meet me halfway.
i don’t have to carry the emotional weight of us both.

i can walk forward on my own.
and if someone wants to join me, they will move.

but i won’t stop blooming just because someone else refuses to rise.

with ink + bloom, 🌻