Care vs carry

Tiny insight:

You can care without carrying someone else’s full emotions and burden.
You can care without blurring boundaries and absorbing what’s their’s into you.
You can care deeply, care comprehensively, care all the time, without carrying.

We can care without carrying.
I can care without carrying.

Super small nuance, but MASSIVE difference.

Because I used to do it wrong. I still do, though trying to change this bad habit now. I thought carrying was caring. I thought they were synonymous. I never knew any other way. What horrors of horrors.

No wonder I’m always exhausted after a coffee.
No wonder I often feel overwhelmed in large groups.
No wonder I prefer solitude.

No wonder people like venting their issues when with me, on me.
Often unsolicited but not out of malice, just out of how at ease they felt.
Because I left the gate invitingly open.

Now I know.

I don’t need to carry no more. I don’t have to be cold, either.
I can care, but take nothing on. Even if I do, I can release it after.

Repeat after me: “I only carry what belongs to me.”