When you call, I come running. When I call, the line gets disconnected.
I used to think it was selfish to want more from someone, but now I see it differently. Wanting to feel valued, like you matter isn’t narcissistic — it’s human. It’s the quiet ache in your chest begging for proof that you’re not invisible.
But I’ve spent so much of my life convincing myself I was asking for too much.
I’ve never been a priority in anyone’s life. I’ve always been the one who cared more, gave more, and sacrificed more. I could be standing on the edge of my own breakdown, and yet, if someone I cared about called, I’d drop everything. No matter the weight I was carrying, I’d be there. Every single time.
But when I needed them? I was met with silence.
I told myself I didn’t deserve to feel hurt. I whispered it over and over like a mantra, trying to suffocate the rising anger in my throat:
“The world doesn’t revolve around you. They’re just busy. They’re going through something. Don’t be selfish.”
I became an expert at making excuses for why the people I needed the most weren’t there.
But no matter how many excuses I whispered to myself, the truth never changed: I wasn’t a priority.
The thing is, I’ve never been “too busy” for someone I cared about. No matter how overwhelmed, broken, or exhausted I felt, I always showed up. So why couldn’t they do the same? Why was my pain so easy to ignore?
“Why can’t you care the way I care for you? Why do you think I can handle this on my own? Why didn’t you show up? Why do I have to beg for the bare minimum? What about me?”
And here’s the hardest truth of all:
If you’ve hurt someone, you don’t get to decide that you didn’t.
You don’t get to brush off their pain or make them feel like they’re too sensitive. If someone tells you that your absence cut them open, you don’t get to pretend it wasn’t your knife.
If you have to make excuses for why someone wasn’t there for you — if you have to convince yourself that they care when everything they do screams otherwise — then maybe they don’t. And that realization feels like drowning.
Because when you’re the one who gives everything, who stays even when it’s hard, who shows up no matter what, it’s soul-crushing to realise that the people you treasure most might not feel the same.
So what about me? Don’t I deserve someone who doesn’t need an excuse? Someone who shows up because they want to, not because they feel obligated? Someone who doesn’t make me question my worth, or whether I was asking for too much?
What about me? Don’t I deserve better?
Maybe I always did.
