This Is Me

I don’t talk much. Maybe that’s the first thing you should know about me. It’s not that I don’t have things to say—I do, too many, in fact. But I hold them back. Not because I want to, but because my mind is always tangled up in thoughts too heavy to push out into the world. So I write instead.

I write because it’s the only way I know how to be free. Words don’t ask me to explain myself, they don’t demand that I speak louder, smile more, or fit into spaces that feel too big or too small for me. They let me exist exactly as I am—soft, unsure, full of things I don’t always understand.

I love love. The kind that sneaks up on you, that settles in the quiet moments when no one is watching. The kind you find in a glance across the room, in the way someone remembers the little things about you—like how you prefer your coffee or how you hate loud voices. I love the way love feels like a secret language, one only two people understand.

But love scares me, too. Because love means letting someone see you, truly see you. And I don’t know if I have ever allowed that. Not completely. I think I love from behind a glass wall—close enough to feel, but far enough to stay safe. Because the truth is, I am afraid of being known. Afraid that once someone sees all of me—the stubbornness, the quiet defensiveness, the way I shrink when I feel misunderstood—they won’t want to stay.

I am stubborn. Not in an aggressive way, but in the way a person clings too tightly to their own thoughts. I take things personally, even when I don’t mean to. When someone corrects me, my first instinct is to retreat, to build a wall, to convince myself they don’t like me. I know it’s not true, but in my head, it feels like rejection. I am learning to soften, to remind myself that love isn’t always gentle—it is also honesty, growth, and people who want you to be better.

I prefer coffee to tea. Something about the depth makes sense to me. I love black, the way it holds everything—every color, every possibility. And I love blue, the kind that reminds me of the sky when it’s about to rain. The kind that feels endless, like something I can disappear into.

I love butterflies. Not just because they’re beautiful, but because they remind me of freedom, of change, of the quiet struggle no one sees before something becomes whole. I think, in many ways, I am still in that in-between space. The part where everything is uncertain, where the wings are still forming, where the sky still feels too far away.

I was born on March 16. A Pisces. Maybe that explains everything. The way I feel too much, the way I retreat into my own world, the way I love things that don’t always make sense.

I hate loud people—not because they are bad, but because they take up all the space, and I don’t know how to exist in places that are already full. I love quiet things. The way the world slows down at night, the way music sounds softer when you listen with your eyes closed, the way a book feels when you hold it in your hands and realize you are about to disappear into something beautiful.

I love my mum. I don’t say it enough, but I do. And I love my man. In a way that feels terrifying. Because to love someone fully is to give them the power to break you, and that is something I am still learning how to do.

I love scented candles, vanilla base perfumes, the kind that linger long after you’ve left the room. I love Christmas movies, the predictable, cheesy ones that make you believe in something soft and warm. I love cleaning. Not just because I like things to be in order, but because it feels like resetting the world. Like wiping away the heaviness, making room for something lighter.

I have a permanent scar under my bottom lip. A small thing, but a part of me nonetheless. A reminder that I have been hurt, that I have healed, that some marks stay with you forever.

I love reading. I love the way words feel like a secret between you and the writer like someone somewhere understands exactly what you are feeling even if you don’t have the words for it yourself.

I love sitting outside in the dead of the night, watching the stars with my partner. I love the silence of it, the way the world feels endless and small all at once. I love humming along to songs I barely know, feeling the music settle into my bones.

And yet, despite all of this, I am scared. Scared to fully allow myself to be in love. Scared to be seen. Scared that one day, someone will get too close and realize I am not as put together as I seem. But still, I love. Even when I am afraid.

This is me. Imperfect. Shy. Stubborn. Deeply feeling. Always overthinking. A writer, a dreamer, a quiet observer of the world.

I am Neta. And this is my heart, in words.