The lies I've lived

& the love that saved me

If I hadn’t moved homes at sixteen, I think I’d be dead by now.

Maybe overdosed in some ditch, a hollowed-out body with a blackened heart. It’s not an exaggeration. When I think about the person I was, the way I clung to hopelessness, it feels like looking at a stranger. I don’t remember her fondly. It’s not that I’m good now—who’s to say what "good" even means? I just know we do the best we can in the moments life hands us, even if that means flailing, stumbling, and screwing up along the way.

I used to think in absolutes: lie, and you’re bad; tell the truth, and you’re good. Help someone? You’re good. Hurt someone? You’re bad.

But life isn’t that simple. I’ve hurt people—good people—because I didn’t know any better, and I wish I could undo the damage. I was cruel when I should’ve been kind. I lied to escape the truth of myself, to hide the gnawing loneliness I couldn’t explain. I convinced my entire eighth grade in school I had pancreatic cancer. Why? Because I didn’t feel loved, and if I couldn’t have real love, real friends, I wanted pity. I wanted someone to look at me and tell me I mattered.

I didn’t think I deserved love. I didn’t believe I was capable of giving it, either. My inner child died long before she got the chance to live. There’s a kind of death that nobody mourns. The one where you look in the mirror and don’t recognize the person staring back. It’s a slow death, the kind that creeps up on you in moments when everything’s supposed to be fine, but inside, you’re screaming. I think that’s where I lost myself—long before I even knew what I was letting go of.

I built walls around myself, thick and tall, because it was easier to shut the world out than to let anyone in.

Letting people in meant letting them see what I was inside. The clawing desperation. I was good at pushing people away. I became an expert at it, and now, looking back, I’m so sorry for the hurt I caused. For the good people I shoved out of my life because I was too scared to let them stay.

Love terrified me.

Not the butterflies-in-your-stomach kind or the romanticized version. No. What scared me was the way love makes you vulnerable. It strips you bare. Like you’re standing under the harshest light, exposed, while someone says, “I see all of you, and I’m staying.” I didn’t know what that felt like. I’d never known.

I’ve tasted hope before. It’s strange, soft like cotton candy dissolving on your tongue—there one moment, gone the next. Hope is sweet, but fleeting. It never sticks around long enough to fill the ache inside. Faith is different. Faith is an anchor. It’s heavy, earthy. Like the weight of soil between your fingers when you dig deep enough to plant something that will outlast you. My faith wasn’t born out of my own strength or belief in myself—hell, I had none of that.

It was given to me by my stepmother.

She’s the kind of woman who defies the stereotype. The complete opposite of the wicked stepmother in Cinderella. She’s an angel who took me under her wing. Nourished my soul when I had nothing left. I’d be nothing without her. When I lied to her, she didn’t yell. She cried. And then she forgave me. Over and over again, she poured love into the cracks, the broken pieces, until there was no room left for the hate I carried. It was her persistence that kept me alive. She saved me when I didn’t think I was worth saving. She practically dragged me into a writing workshop when I was 17—shoved me into a room full of strangers, all of them older than me, and forced me to face my fears. It was exactly what I needed.

Faith is all you need, they say. I’m not sure I ever truly believed that until I met her.

I built walls because it was the only way I knew how to survive. But she kept knocking at them, over and over, until eventually, the walls crumbled. She didn’t let go. Even when I wanted her to. Even when I hated her for loving me so persistently. And because of her, I began to see that love doesn’t have to be transactional. It doesn’t have to be earned or repaid. It just is.

She changed my life forever.

I’ve hurt people. More than I care to admit.

I’ve hurt the people who stood by me when I didn’t deserve it. I pushed them away because I didn’t know how to be loved without feeling like I owed something in return. I thought love came with a price tag, and I wasn’t willing to pay it. So I ran. I ran from love, from connection, from anything that made me feel exposed. And I’m so sorry. Deeply, genuinely sorry for the people I lost because of it. For the people I can never get back. The grief sits heavy in me.

Love doesn’t ask for perfection. It doesn’t demand anything other than your presence. It doesn’t care if you’re broken or scared. It just waits. Happily. Patiently. And after many years I’m ready to open the door, even if my hands shake as I turn the key.

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You read a snippet of my story. Would you be comfortable sharing a snippet of yours? You can write to me on email or leave a comment here🧡

What are the walls you’ve built, and are you ready to let someone in?

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PS: If you’d like to read more essays by me, you’re going to love my entire archive!

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Thank you for being here, for reading.

Mo 🧡

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