I didn’t stop feeling. I just stopped reaching because being alone hurts less than being let down.

<img src="/media/inline_insight_image/1000099263.jpg"/> I used to laugh.Loud, unrestrained laughter. The kind that spilled from me like light through cracked glass. I had friends once. Not just people I talked to, but people who saw me. People who knew how I took my coffee, knew the songs that made me cry, knew how I twisted my hair when I was anxious. People who knocked on my door without calling first. People who stayed. And then I stopped answering. Not all at once.It started with a missed call. Then a “Sorry, can’t make it tonight.”Then a party I skipped. A birthday I forgot.A reply left unsent. And they all waited. For a while.They texted. They called.“Are you okay?”“I miss you.”“Talk to me.” But happiness is cruel. It comes in bursts—beautiful, blinding—and always followed by a collapse. A sudden loneliness after the party ends. A silence after the laughter dies. A friend moving away. A fight you didn’t see coming. A goodbye you weren’t ready for. So I stopped chasing joy and started choosing comfort.Because comfort doesn’t leave. Comfort is routine. It's eating the same meals, walking the same streets, avoiding eye contact with old friends across the grocery aisle. It’s pretending you didn’t see them. It’s knowing if you let them in again, they’ll make you laugh—and then one day, they’ll leave, or change, or die. And you’ll be shattered all over again. So you fold inwards. You stop sending birthday cards. You stop reaching out. You tell yourself they’re better off without you. That you were never that important anyway. And eventually, the calls stop. The knock on your door never comes. And you tell yourself it’s fine.You tell yourself you’re not lonely.You tell yourself you chose this. And you did. You chose the quiet.You chose the stillness.You chose the safety of not loving too deeply, not laughing too hard, not hoping too much. Because hope is dangerous. Because when you hope, you wait for the fall.And the fall hurts more when you’ve flown. So now, I sit. In the same apartment. With the same chipped mug. With the same silence that doesn’t argue, doesn’t die, doesn’t leave. And sometimes, when the sun is warm through the window and I catch the echo of a laugh in the street, something stirs. But I push it down. Because comfort never breaks you.Because comfort is quiet. Predictable. Safe.And happiness—Happiness always asks too much. So yes, I chose comfort.I chose the empty inbox, the untouched phone, the unopened heart.I chose comfort over joy, silence over connection. Not because I didn’t want happiness… but because I didn’t trust it to stay. And maybe the saddest part? I don’t even regret it. I would choose it all over again if there was a next life. I will always choose comfort over happiness—because comfort doesn’t leave, doesn’t break, doesn’t ask you to hope, it simply lets you exist without asking for anything back.

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