[DRAFT] Journal Entry from August 2, 2026: I get to hear 'no'
On bravery, and on the freedom to choose.
Sunday
9:42 PM
For a long time, women’s romantic lives were shaped more by circumstance than by choice.
Well, that’s not entirely true. Choice was a factor, but everyone except for the woman in question had the right to decide. Economics decided. Politics decided. Families decided. Marriage was less about affection, compatibility, or love, and more about survival.
But my life is different. I get to choose who I love. I get to tell someone that I think they’re beautiful. I get to ask the question.
I get to hear “no”.
This is the story, and my reflection, of my latest “no”.
I was sitting in his car in the parking lot of my apartment complex. I clenched the folded piece of paper in my hand, a page torn from my journal. I knew this might be the last time we spoke the way we did, the last chance to ask another question or hear another story about him. Once the note was in his hands, there was no going back.
Eventually, I knew I couldn’t stall any longer. I thanked him for the ride, handed him the note, and rushed inside.
I greeted my cats at the door of my apartment and got into my bedtime clothes. I washed my face and brushed my teeth. I braided my hair in silence. I was doing everything I could not to check my phone.
That piece of paper said what I hadn’t been brave enough to say out loud. It told him that I thought he was smart, kind, funny, and handsome. That I’d developed a crush on him.
My phone finally lit up with a text from him about an hour later. I took a deep breath and opened the message.
He thanked me for the note. He was kind. He was gentle.
He did not feel the same way.
I locked my phone and sat in the silence of my home for a while. I thought about what I should say. I thought about what I’d just lost. I thought about why I’d done it in the first place.
I replied a few minutes later, thanking him and wishing him well.
I’d written the note a few days beforehand, and it’d sat on my dresser, where it would stare back at me every morning. What would I be admitting – to myself, to the world – if I handed it over? That I was open to love? That I wanted to bring romance back into my life after months of tucking that version of myself deep into the darkest parts of my chest?
I don’t know what changed before dinner that night, as I read the note back one last time before tucking it into my purse. Maybe I simply grew tired of waiting for something to happen.
Historically, I’ve been the one waiting to be chosen by an invisible, shadowy concept of a person that lived more in my imagination than in my real life. This time was different; I was intrigued by someone and I went for it. Unfortunately, that’s where the romantic version of this story ends.
But I uncovered a different story in the aftermath.
I’m afraid I messed up an easy friendship, or at the very least a good professional connection. Maybe that was the last conversation we’ll ever have.
But these were always the stakes. I knew what I was risking.
I knew that to get the clarity I craved I needed to be vulnerable and risk disappointment. You don’t get love without a bit of loss and embarrassment.
I can only hope he never feels tricked by our friendship, that he doesn’t revisit old conversations for hidden meanings or wonder whether he accidentally led me on. I did all I could to draw a line between my feelings and my actions. They were mine to carry, not his.
Until I told him.
Vulnerability transfers the weight of knowing onto the other person. Once the note was his to read, my feelings became part of his reality, too. I couldn’t control what he did with that knowledge any more than I could control his answer.
All in all, I feel lighter. A corner of my mind has gone quiet. There’s no more searching for evidence, no more imagined realities. No more wondering if he meant something he didn’t.
No more “maybe”.
He’s the first person I’ve genuinely liked since my last relationship. In a way, he’s proof that I’m capable of wanting someone again, that I might be capable of loving someone again one day. I’m not actively looking for a relationship, but I guess I’m open to one with the right person.
Who is the right person, anyway?
I think it depends. As I reflect on the people I’ve loved and the people I’ve nearly loved, I realize that they were all mirrors of the person I was becoming – or the person I thought I was. As my values and needs and perceptions of myself evolve, so do the people I’m drawn to. And those people transform me.
This time around, the transformation was not that he chose me (although that would’ve been nice), but that I chose differently.
A year ago, I would’ve believed that someone like him was out of my league. This year, I just thought he was someone worth getting to know.
Heartbreak is painful. But it is also evidence of a freedom that so many women before me never had. I would rather risk rejection than spend my life wondering who I might’ve become if I’d been brave enough to speak.
Like every person I’ve cared about before, he became part of the woman I am becoming. He asked something new of me.
There will be other people and other versions of me. I hope I remember this version of myself kindly because she decided to choose instead of waiting to be chosen.
She was brave enough to ask the question, and she was brave enough to hear the answer.