All I wanted was to belong. To enter a room and not question if there was space for me. To exist among people, families, communities, systems, without having to remove parts of myself first. But somewhere along the way, I learnt how to become smaller. Spoke less. Asked for less. Took less space. Until being accepted started to look a lot like disappearing. And perhaps that is what scares me the most. That in a world this large, sometimes the only way we are allowed to belong is by becoming small enough to be kept.