I Wanted to Let People In, But I Didn’t Know Where to Put Them Anymore

I Wanted to Let People In, But I Didn’t Know Where to Put Them Anymore

They told me healing meant learning to trust again.

But no one ever explained what to do with the fear when someone finally knocked on the door.

I didn’t forget how to be around people.

I forgot how to believe they wouldn’t leave.

Not because I wanted to doubt them —

but because history gave me no reason not to.

When the damage is public, the healing becomes private.

Not because you want to be alone —

but because being seen again becomes another kind of risk.

What if they don’t believe you?

What if they’re only here to collect details?

What if they say the right things and leave the moment you’re not convenient?

That’s not anxiety.

That’s memory.

I met good people after the worst of it.

People who showed up without being asked.

People who said “you don’t have to explain anything to me.”

And still, I kept them at a distance.

Not because I didn’t want closeness —

but because I no longer knew where to place it.

How do you welcome new people into a life that’s been burned at the edges?

How do you hand them your name

when that name has already been rewritten by people who never bothered to ask who you were?

I wanted connection — but didn’t trust the architecture anymore.

Every bridge felt like a liability.

Every kind gesture came with a shadow of suspicion.

Every “I believe you” echoed like a countdown.

Because once, I believed them too.

But even in all of that, something in me stayed open.

Maybe not to people —

but to the possibility that not everyone wanted something from me.

That maybe, just maybe, someone could show up

without trying to fix me, frame me, or forget me.

So I didn’t fully shut down.

I left the door cracked —

just enough to let light in.

And that was the beginning of my return.

Not a return to who I was.

That person doesn’t live here anymore.

But a return to the kind of life where people don’t have to pass a hundred silent tests

just to get close.

A return to presence.

To eye contact that doesn’t scan for betrayal.

To moments that don’t need to be defended before they’re even lived.

If you’ve been there — if you’re still there —

I get it.

You’re not cold.

You’re not antisocial.

You’re not broken.

You just haven’t felt safe in a very long time.

And that’s not your fault.

It’s a scar.

But even scars stretch.

And slowly, they start to feel less like reminders —

and more like proof that something healed.

This is Post 6 of The Long Return.

And it’s not just a post.

It’s me letting someone in.

You’re here now.

So maybe the door was open wider than I thought.