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For a long time, I thought being understood was important.

I felt like if someone misunderstood my intentions, my choices, my feelings, or the reasons behind something I did, it became my responsibility to fix their perception of me. I would replay conversations in my head, wondering what I could have said differently. I would write paragraphs trying to make someone understand where I was coming from. I would explain the same situation over and over, hoping that eventually I would find the perfect combination of words that would finally make someone say, “Okay, now I understand”.

Sometimes I explained myself so much that I started questioning decisions I had already felt confident about.

Maybe I should have handled it differently. Maybe I overreacted. Maybe I should give another chance. Maybe I should apologize even though I wasn’t the only person who contributed to the situation. Maybe keeping the peace was more important than saying how I actually felt.

But I’m starting to realize something that has completely changed the way I look at situations like these:

Not everyone is going to understand you.

And maybe they don’t have to.

There comes a point where constantly explaining yourself becomes exhausting. You start spending more energy defending your decisions than actually living with them. You become so worried about how something looks from the outside that you forget to ask yourself how it feels on the inside.

And those are two completely different things.

Someone looking at your life from the outside might think you should have stayed longer, tried harder, forgiven faster, spoken sooner, stayed quiet, given another chance, or handled something differently.

But they weren’t the one living it.

They weren’t there for every conversation that happened behind closed doors. They weren’t there for every disappointment you kept to yourself. They weren’t there during the nights you stared at the ceiling replaying everything in your head. They didn’t experience the moments when you questioned yourself, cried privately, or wondered how much longer you could continue pretending something wasn’t affecting you.

People often see the final decision without seeing the hundreds of moments that created it.

They see you walk away, but they don’t see how many times you stayed.

They see you stop responding, but they don’t see how many conversations you already tried to have.

They see the boundary, but they don’t see everything that happened before you finally needed one.

They see you change, but they don’t always understand what forced you to.

And sometimes people will form opinions about you without ever asking for the full story.

That’s one of the hardest things to accept.

People will hear one side of a situation and decide they know exactly what happened. Someone might judge a decision you made without knowing what led you there. They might question why you walked away, why you stopped talking to someone, why you became quieter, why you started protecting your peace, why you no longer tolerate certain behavior, or why you simply decided something wasn’t right for your life anymore.

But they weren’t inside your head during the nights you couldn’t sleep because you were overthinking everything.

They didn’t hear every conversation.

They didn’t experience every disappointment.

They didn’t feel every emotion.

And they weren’t there for the moment when something inside you finally whispered – or maybe screamed – enough.

So why should someone who only knows a small piece of your story get to decide whether your choices were justified?

That doesn’t mean we should never explain ourselves.

Communication matters. Accountability matters. Apologizing when we’ve genuinely hurt someone matters. Listening to another person’s perspective matters. There are absolutely moments when we need to put our pride aside and have uncomfortable conversations.

But there is a difference between communicating and constantly defending your existence.

There is a difference between explaining your perspective and begging someone to validate it.

There is a difference between saying, “This is how I feel,” and repeatedly trying to convince someone that your feelings deserve to exist in the first place.

You shouldn’t have to present evidence every time something hurts you.

You shouldn’t have to write an essay explaining why your boundaries deserve respect.

You shouldn‘t have to convince someone that something they did affected you simply because they wouldn’t have reacted the same way.

And you shouldn’t have to shrink your feelings just because someone else doesn’t understand them.

One of the hardest lessons I’ve been learning is that sometimes closure isn’t getting someone to finally understand your side.

Sometimes closure is realizing that they may never understand – and choosing peace anyway.

Sometimes closure is no longer checking whether someone finally sees these things differently.

Sometimes closure is accepting that you said what you needed to say.

Sometimes closure is deciding that you don’t need an apology in order to move forward.

And sometimes closure is simply recognizing that continuing the conversation is costing you more peace than ending it ever could.

There is freedom in knowing who you are without needing everyone else to agree with you.

There is freedom in making a decision because you know it is right for your life, even when someone else thinks you should choose differently.

There is freedom in saying no without attaching three paragraphs explaining why.

There is freedom in realizing that “I don’t want to” can sometimes be enough.

There is freedom in walking away from conversations where you’ve already said everything that needed to be said.

There is freedom in not responding to every accusation, every assumption, every rumor, or every opinion someone has about you.

And there is freedom is realizing that someone’s perception of you does not automatically become the truth about you.

People can misunderstand you and you can still be a good person.

Someone can be disappointed in your decision and it can still be the right decision for you.

Someone can disagree with your boundary and you can still keep it.

Someone can think you’ve changed and maybe they’re right.

Because sometimes changing isn’t something we should be ashamed of.

Sometimes you’ve changed because you’ve learned.

You’ve changed because certain experiences taught you what you will and will not tolerate.

You’ve changed because constantly abandoning yourself to make everyone else comfortable became exhausting.

You’ve changed because you’re learning that protecting your peace isn’t selfish.

And maybe the version of you that people miss was the version who didn’t know how to say no.

Maybe they miss the version who always answered.

The version who forgave without changed behavior.

The version who gave unlimited chances.

The version who stayed quiet because confrontation made you uncomfortable.

The version who carried everyone else’s feelings while ignoring your own.

If becoming healthier, stronger, more aware, and more protective of yourself makes someone say you’ve changed, maybe that’s not necessarily an insult.

Maybe that’s proof that you’re growing.

I’ve spent enough time worrying about being misunderstood.

I’m learning that the people who genuinely want to understand me will ask questions instead of making assumptions. They’ll listen instead of immediately preparing their response. They’ll give me room to explain myself without making me feel like I’m standing in a courtroom defending every decision I’ve ever made.

They won’t require me to abandon my own feelings just to make theirs more comfortable.

And the people who have already decided who I am?

Another explanation probably isn’t going to change their minds anyway.

You can spend hours trying to explain yourself to someone who is committed to misunderstanding you, and all you’ll accomplish is exhausting yourself.

At some point, you have to decide that your peace is worth more.

You have to stop rewriting the same paragraph hoping someone will finally read it differently.

You have to stop reopening wounds just to prove that they hurt.

You have to stop believing that everyone deserves access to the deepest parts of your story simply because they’re curious about why you’ve changed.

Some things are yours.

Some experiences don’t require public explanations.

Some decisions don’t need approval.

And some chapters are allowed to close quietly.

So maybe the goal isn’t to make everyone understand us.

Maybe the goal is to understand ourselves well enough that someone else’s misunderstanding doesn’t completely shake us.

Know why you made the decision.

Know what you experienced.

Know what you learned.

Know what you deserve.

Know what you’re no longer willing to accept.

Know how hard you tried before you finally chose yourself.

And then keep moving.

You don’t need to spend the rest of your life defending decisions that helped you become healthier, happier, or more at peace.

The people meant to walk beside you won’t require you to constantly prove your heart.

And the ones who misunderstand you may continue misunderstanding you no matter how beautifully you explain yourself.

Let them.

Because at the end of the day, you are the one who has to live your life – not the people standing on the outside judging how you choose to live it.

Some chapters of your life won’t make sense to people who only read a few pages.

That’s okay.

They don’t have to understand the entire story for you to keep writing it.

Until next time,

Between the Words