There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from loving someone while nothing is settled.
Not the dramatic kind.
Not the kind that ends with shouting or closure.
The quieter one.
It lives in waiting.
In pauses that feel longer than they probably are.
In unanswered messages, delayed returns, softened tones, changed rhythms.
On the outside, you’re doing what you believe is right.
You’re showing up with dignity.
You’re measured.
You’re kind.
You’re not chasing, demanding, or collapsing into need.
Inside, though, the mind is anything but quiet.
It narrates. It speculates. It fills gaps with imagined meaning.
It replays conversations, re-reads silences, scans for proof that things are either safe or slipping.
Every unanswered moment feels like a test you didn’t know you were writing.
There’s an urge to clarify, to fix, to do something.
To reach for certainty like a railing in the dark.
And some days, in the middle of all that composure,
Sometimes I hate my fucking mind. Not because it’s broken but because it won’t stop trying to protect me from things it cannot control.
And sometimes the hardest discipline is not action, but restraint.
To sit with the discomfort.
To notice the anxiety without letting it steer.
To resist turning fear into behavior.
This isn’t about saving a relationship. And it isn’t about letting one go.
It’s about staying present while the outcome is unknown. About choosing not to outsource your self-respect to reassurance. About learning that love does not require constant confirmation to be real. About holding yourself steady when your inner world is loud and insistent.
There are moments no one sees: the waiting, the second-guessing , the urge to reach out and the decision not to, and the private negotiations with your own mind.
This experience is common—and strangely unspoken.
We talk about love as pursuit or surrender. Rarely as endurance. Rarely as the quiet act of staying in tune while everything inside you is shaking.
On a violin, holding a note requires steadiness.
Too much pressure and it screeches.
Too little and it fades.
The hand must remain calm even when the arm trembles.
This is that kind of moment.
Not a crescendo.
Not a resolution.
Just the sustained note.
Breath steady.
Posture intact.
Sound true.
And maybe that’s enough for now.