Monday, 13 April 2026
11:31pm
When did it become cool to not give a shit?
There’s this whole thing about playing it cool but any time I try, my body has a visceral reaction, like I’m telling a bad lie.
In the past I lacked discernment. These days, I try to enter romantic situations with caution. I’ve learned enough lessons from my era of limerence that I no longer romanticise strangers. But once I decide I care, I don’t do it halfway. Historically I’ve given a shit to the point of self-abandonment and that was the problem. But surely there has to be a better alternative than to just not care at all?
So I’m not a ‘chill girl.’ Ok? And?
I say this very early on. I’m fucking intense, dude.
I can’t pretend to be nonchalant. At least not for long. If I’m nonchalant with you, it’s because I sincerely don’t feel a single thing, or I never cared about you in the first place.
I have no idea when or why detachment became aspirational. Or when caring became embarrassing and vulnerability became a lack of self-respect. I think maybe we got burned enough times that we started calling the scar tissue a personality. We’ve collectively rebranded emotional unavailability as self-respect.
I can’t stand it when people confuse yearning for a lack of self-respect.
It’s often called self-preservation when you walk away from someone you care about without making a fuss. Sometimes what we call self-preservation is just fear and ego wearing a respectable outfit.
I think there’s something admirable about people who still dare to feel deeply in an age of emotional cowardice. To show you care.
We’ve become so terrified of appearing needy that people now confuse genuine care with desperation.
Do you know what’s really fucking sexy? Effort.
Loving is the most natural thing in the world. Connection is our most human instinct. So much music. So much art.
All about wanting.
I think when you choose to care, you should do it unabashedly. Not chaotically. Not confusing intensity with love. But just… when you’re in it, be in it. Care about people. Try. Show up.
I’ve always expressed myself in a way that could be perceived as eccentric. It’s all intensified because I cherry pick my most painful passions and turn them into art. I’ve written songs about love and the yearning that sits firmly like a rock in the pit of my stomach. I’ve written dramatic essays and poems about heartbreak.
You should know I take my role as the ‘crazy ex-girlfriend’ very seriously.
As the great Taylor Swift once said: I’ve got a long list of ex-lovers. They’ll tell you I’m insane. But I’ve got a blank space, baby. And I’ll write your name.
Feeling things deeply does not make you crazy.
Self-abandonment and delusion, however, might send you in that direction and could eventually earn you a brief stay at the grippy sock hotel.
What would really be awful is not being able to love at all. Not fully. Not to the point of real ache or creation. To never access that depth. I’d rather feel too much than build a personality around feeling nothing. I have tried to feel less. I cannot do it.
It’s not that boundaries are bad or that everyone guarded is incapable of depth. But I hate that indifference has become so overpraised. We keep people around when they’re convenient. Discard them when they’re inconvenient.
We used to yearn. We used to write poems and send long, rambling letters. To love to the point of invention and reinvention? I think that is fucking beautiful. Bring back yearning. Bring back devotion.
I want that. I am that.
After all, I can honestly say that I have lived through the full violence of human emotion. And I’ve been bold enough to make it known.
Yes, it can be seriously fucking painful when you’re the only one left holding those feelings. But I couldn’t imagine being so guarded that I wasn’t able to love as hard as I do.
Floating from person to person. Keeping people close because they’re convenient. Never letting yourself fall too hard, but never letting yourself feel fully known either. Maybe it hurts less. But it also feels like living life in 2D.
I know there are people whose eyes widen at the sound of my name.
First of all, I never said I was a chill girl. I am not. I am who I am.
For some, perhaps I am too much. But I refuse to be less. The distinction lies in being able to hold all of those big feelings while never letting go of yourself. Because I’ve learned that when you try to shrink yourself down, you will be left feeling like you’re not enough. But, my darling, how can you be both too much and not enough at the same time?
If others are incapable of swimming your depth, then perhaps it is not you who is lacking. And if they say you are too much, let them go. Let them find less.
See you next time in the confessional.
Blithe x
I try my best to be contained
but I spill like red wine on someone else’s white shirt
Loud, permanent and hard to forgive.
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