I used to see the world through rose-colored glasses. Not because I was naïve, but because I chose to believe that people were, at their core, kind. That if given the choice, most people would do the right thing. That cruelty was the exception, not the rule. I didn’t think the world was perfect. I just believed it was fundamentally decent.
Then something happened that forced those glasses off, not gently, not gradually, but all at once. And what hurt the most wasn’t what I lost or what I endured. It was what I learned.
I learned that some people aren’t simply hurt, they are shaped by hurt. That when pain is the only language someone has ever been spoken to in, they learn to speak it fluently. That there are people so full of self-hatred that causing harm feels like relief. Like control. Like proof they still exist.
I didn’t want to know that.
I still don’t.
This realization changed me in ways I don’t like. I don’t automatically assume the good in people anymore, but I refuse to assume the bad. So instead, I disengage. I observe. I keep my distance. Not because I believe the world is cruel, but because I don’t want to.
There is grief in that. Real grief. I am mourning a version of myself who believed without hesitation. Who trusted without calculation. Who moved through the world with softness instead of caution. Losing this feels like losing something sacred. And maybe that’s what hurts the most, not that the glasses came off, but that once they did, I can’t put them back on. I don’t want to see the world as dark. I don’t want to harden. I don’t want cynicism to be the price of survival.
And that’s what hurts the most, not that the glasses came off, but that once they did, I can’t put them back on. I don’t want to see the world as dark. I don’t want to harden. I don’t want cynicism to be the price of survival.
So I stand here, in between, holding onto hope without innocence, choosing compassion without blindness, and grieving a belief that once made the world feel understandable. And my heart breaks a little, every time I realize how much I loved that way of seeing. John Lennon was wrong love isn’t all you need.
🩷 Charlotte