We Are Not Like Them

by Christine Pride

I’m already more relaxed knowing that for the next few hours I don’t have to try so hard or impress anyone. Sometimes you just need to be around someone who loved you before you were a fully formed person. It’s like finding your favorite sweatshirt in the back of the closet, the one you forgot why you stopped wearing and once you find it again you sleep in it every night.

he made me feel seen. It’s hard to explain. Like I could just be my real self. I didn’t overthink with him, I just was. When he looked at me, I felt like both the person I am and wanted to be. He made me feel, I don’t know… special, confident…

You can’t expect everyone to get everything. Sometimes you’ve gotta meet people where they are and bring them along.

There it was, the praise from Corey that never failed to validate me in some essential way. I used to hate that—hate the way he made me feel, like it gave him some power over me. But then I realized why I valued his admiration so much—I never had to work for it. With everyone else in my life, I was always tap dancing, always on a stage, always trying to be “impressive”—with

Here he is now looking at me like that again. Like he sees me, sees right through me.