I was happy earlier today.

And I don't even know what happened. I genuinely don't.

I had plans. Actual plans. I wasn't just saying I wanted to get my life together. I was doing something about it.

I started exercising yesterday. I promised myself I'd drink more water, prioritise my sleep and generally take better care of myself. I made to-do lists. I had things I wanted to accomplish. I was looking forward to them, too.

I was happy.

Then tonight happened.

I've been dealing with some unpleasantness in my personal life. The kind that leaves you questioning whether you're asking for too much, whether you're becoming a nuisance to someone you care about, whether you should just learn to keep certain thoughts to yourself.

I'm tired of explaining why something hurt me. Tired of feeling like I'm making a fuss over things that matter to me. Tired of having to think twice before expressing something as ordinary as excitement or curiosity.

And because apparently that wasn't enough for one evening, I decided to check people's statuses.

The first thing I saw was a list of ten reasons why you MUST marry a slim girl.

She has nice eyes. She knows how to cook. And apparently, they have the best shapes for wedding dresses.

That one particularly caught my attention. Best shapes for wedding dresses? As though wedding dresses are exclusively designed for slim women. As though fuller-bodied brides cannot look breathtaking on their wedding day. As though the dress is supposed to determine the worth of the woman wearing it.

And I'm sitting there thinking, what exactly is the point of this list?

Are we suggesting that girls who aren't slim don't have nice eyes? That we can't cook? That we don't possess these wonderful qualities? That somehow our bodies cancel out everything else we bring to the table?

I'm not slim. I know that. I don't need a WhatsApp status to remind me.

I understand that people have preferences. That's fine. But there's a difference between having a preference and attaching a list of desirable human qualities to one body type as though the rest of us are somehow deficient.

And perhaps I was already in a terrible mood, but the repeated misuse of "there" instead of "they're" wasn't helping. I was trying to process my insecurities, and now I had to fight for the English language too. There were apparently ten reasons to marry a slim girl, but none of them included proofreading.

I scrolled to the next status.

And it said something about how much it hurts when you're excited to share something with someone and they make you feel terrible for sharing it.

And I just stopped.

Because isn't that exactly what I've been feeling?

I get excited. I ask questions. I want to know things. I want to share little bits of my day and hear about yours. I want to feel like I'm talking to someone who actually wants to talk to me.

But lately, I feel like I have to think twice before saying anything. Like I have to measure my words, calculate the likelihood of irritating someone and decide whether whatever I want to say is worth the trouble.

And I'm tired.

I'm tired of feeling unwanted. I'm tired of wondering whether I'm too much. I'm tired of having to explain that I wasn't trying to annoy anyone. I was just trying to connect.

Somehow, tonight, all these things have become one big mess in my head.

My insecurities. My relationships. My body. My plans. My feelings.

And the worst part is that I was doing so well earlier.

I was genuinely excited about working on myself. Now I'm wondering whether I'm doing it because I want to feel healthier or because some part of me has started believing that I need to become more acceptable.

I don't want that.

I don't want to hate my body into becoming something else. I don't want to exercise because I feel like I'm competing with girls who look different from me. I don't want to drink water and go to bed early because I think doing those things will somehow make me more deserving of love.

I just wanted to feel better.

Is that too much to ask?

I don't even know what I want right now. I want to cry, I think. I want to stop thinking. I want to go back to the version of myself who was making those lists earlier, who was excited about tomorrow, who thought she was finally getting some things together.

I miss her already.

And it's strange because nothing particularly extraordinary happened tonight. Just messages, statuses, words on a screen. Things that other people probably posted without giving them a second thought.

But they found me at the wrong time.

And maybe that's what hurts. Sometimes you're already carrying so much, and then one more little thing happens. One more reminder. One more comparison. One more moment that makes you feel like you're not quite enough.

And suddenly, you're overwhelmed by things that might not have hurt this much on another day.

I was happy earlier today.

I wish I could go back to that feeling.

I don't know how tomorrow will feel. I don't know if I'll wake up motivated or sad or somewhere in between. I don't know if I'll finish my to-do list or even get out of bed at the time I planned.

I just know that tonight hurts.

And for once, I don't want to pretend it doesn't.