I didn’t stop to consider all the ways I had volunteered for my own captivity—all the ways I had walked into a life that was so stifling of who I was inside. We all make tradeoffs, compromises, and we settle for less than we might need or want or even deserve when it comes to relationships. My entire twenties were spent under the control of a person, an institution, and a myth, that was so much bigger than I had in me to push against.
