Clinging to the Good

Nobody warned me that when my frontal lobe finally developed, it would come with a pit in my stomach.

I thought adulthood would arrive with confidence. Maybe clearer skin. Better decisions. Definitely more certainty.

Instead, it showed up quietly one day and whispered, "What are you doing with your life?"

Now that whisper visits me more often than I'

d like. Sometimes it's so loud it steals the air from my lungs. Sometimes it arrives as tears that form before I've even figured out what I'm crying about. There isn't always a reason. There isn't always a fix. Just this ache that makes me question everything I've built and everything I'm becoming.

Am I on the right path?

Am I enough?

Am I loved?

The hardest part is that these questions don't just stay about careers or dreams. They sneak into relationships. Into friendships. Into every corner of my heart.

Sometimes I convince myself that people don't really choose me, they just need me.

They need someone to listen.

Someone to organize.

Someone to remember their coffee order.

Someone to show up.

Someone to love them without limits.

And I do.

I love loudly. Once you make it past the walls I spend so much energy pretending don't exist, you get every version of me. You'll get someone who remembers your favorite snack at the grocery store. Someone who makes notes in her phone of the little things you mention because they're important to you. Someone who celebrates your victories like they're her own. Someone who would leave in the middle of the night if you needed her.

I don't know how to love halfway.

I've never wanted to.

But somewhere along the way, I started mistaking being needed for being chosen.

There's a difference.

Being needed is about what you provide.

Being chosen is about who you are.

For a long time, I kept trying to earn the second by giving more of the first.

Maybe if I was thoughtful enough...

Helpful enough...

Available enough...

Easy enough...

Loving enough...

Then surely no one would leave.

It's exhausting to spend your life trying to become indispensable because you're afraid you aren't already worthy.

The funny thing is, I never loved people expecting something in return.

That's what made it so confusing.

I wasn't keeping score.

I wasn't making transactions.

I just wanted, somewhere deep down, to experience love that looked a little like mine.

Not identical.

Just intentional.

I wanted someone to remember me the way I remembered them.

To choose me on purpose.

To love me loudly.

For a while, I became embarrassed by how attached I could get, to people, to places, to seasons of life that had already ended. I started calling myself "clingy" like it was a flaw I needed to outgrow.

But I've realized something.

Maybe I wasn't too much.

Maybe I was just trying to cling to people who weren't meant to hold me.

That's where Clinging to the Good was born.

At first, it sounded like a prettier version of my insecurity.

If I was going to cling to something, maybe I could at least make it sound poetic.

But over time, it became something else entirely.

A reminder.

Don't cling to people who make you question your worth.

Cling to moments that make you feel alive.

Cling to the friends who choose you without making you audition for the role.

Cling to sunsets that quiet your anxious thoughts.

Cling to belly laughs.

Cling to purpose.

Cling to faith.

Cling to hope.

Cling to the version of yourself that existed before the world convinced you that love had to be earned.

Because maybe that's the lesson I've been learning all along.

Love isn't something you perform well enough to receive.

It isn't a prize for being useful.

It isn't hidden behind perfection or productivity or people-pleasing.

Real love chooses.

It stays.

It celebrates who you are, not just what you do.

And maybe adulthood isn't about finally becoming someone who never questions herself.

Maybe it's about learning that even on the days when the pit in your stomach asks, "What are you doing with your life?" you can answer with gentleness instead of panic.

Maybe I'm becoming someone who no longer clings out of fear of being left behind.

Maybe I'm learning to cling to what has always been worthy of holding onto.

The good.

And maybe, just maybe, that includes me.