I don’t think I’ve said this out loud before. Not properly. But I’ve thought it more times than I can count. I really thought you’d be different.

Not perfect. Just… different. You said all the right things. I thought I wouldn’t have to think so much about what I say. Or how I say it. Or whether it would turn into something bigger.

I thought I’d feel a bit more at ease. Like I could just be myself without second guessing it. And for a while, I think I believed that’s what it was.

But slowly, things started to feel familiar. Not in a good way. In the way where I recognised the same patterns.

The same conversations. The same feeling of needing to hold things back. And that’s the part that’s hard to sit with because it’s not just about what’s happening now.

It’s realising that I let myself believe this time would feel different.

That I wouldn’t end up here again. I don’t think you did anything intentionally.

And I’m not saying it’s all on you. But something about this doesn’t feel new. Is it my pattern? Is it because of something I naturally do?

It feels like something I’ve been in before. And I don’t know what to do with that yet.