To the One Who’ll Love Me Next

I won’t pretend I’m easy.

I’m not the kind of person who comes in quiet and neat, with all the right words and tidy emotions.

I’m the kind of person who feels in full volume—who breaks wide open when I hurt, who laughs too hard when I’m happy, who cries like the world is ending when it’s just too much to carry quietly anymore.

I don’t scream because I’m ungrateful.

I scream because sometimes, my pain has no other way out.

The truth is, I’ve never really fit in.

Not in school. Not in jobs. Not even in the mirror some days.

I feel like I was born tilted, off-center—made of pieces that don’t line up the way they should.

I was labeled ADHD as a kid, but I know that’s not the whole story. I’ve always known I’m different in ways no one could quite explain.

Maybe it’s autism. Maybe it’s trauma. Maybe it’s a lifetime of being misunderstood.

But it’s real. And it’s hard.

Some days I can’t keep up with the world.

My sleep schedule shifts like a tide I can’t control.

Some days I wake up with so much pain in my body, I can barely move, let alone function.

And other days, I talk too much, too fast, about the same thing over and over—because it’s in my head like a song stuck on repeat, and saying it out loud is the only way to soften the noise.

I need you to know all of this before you fall in love with me.

Because love is easy in the soft moments, when I’m smiling and silly and warm.

But I am not always those things.

Sometimes I shut down.

Sometimes I freak out.

Sometimes I sob in the bathroom because something small felt enormous in my nervous system.

Sometimes I lash out—not to hurt, but because I’m scared, overstimulated, or panicking and I don’t know how else to ask for help.

I don’t need someone to fix me.

I need someone to stay.

Stay when I need silence.

Stay when my hands shake.

Stay when I’m spiraling and feel like I’m losing control of everything, including myself.

I’ll give you all I’ve got in return.

I love with a depth most people are afraid of.

I’ll see you in ways no one else does. I’ll remember the things that matter to you. I’ll listen. I’ll care. I’ll show up for you even when I can barely show up for myself—because that’s how my heart works.

I want someone to choose me even knowing all of this.

Not because they pity me. Not because they want to save me.

But because they see the soul underneath the struggle—the gentleness, the loyalty, the fire that refuses to go out even when life keeps trying to smother it.

You don’t have to have all the answers.

Just be soft where the world has been sharp.

Be calm when my emotions become chaos.

Be safe.

My last relationship ended not because I stopped loving him, but because my pain was more than he could carry.

He told me it wasn’t my fault—that he thought he could handle more than he truly could.

But it still felt like rejection. Like abandonment. Like proof that I am too much.

That fear haunts me still.

But I keep hoping that maybe, just maybe, someone is out there who sees my storms—and doesn’t run from the rain.

So if you’re out there,

Please don’t wait for me to be perfect.

I’m not. I never will be.

But I am real.

I am trying.

I am still here.

And I’m ready—if you are.

— Mary (Jessy) Clinton