You Stopped Explaining Yourself. Good.
At some point I realised I had spent approximately forty percent of my adult life explaining myself to people who had already made up their minds.
I explained why I was tired. Why I needed to leave early. Why I did not want to go. Why I changed my mind. Why I was not fine when someone asked how I was and I accidentally told the truth by mistake.
I wrote paragraphs. Long ones. In text messages, at three in the morning, to people who read them and replied "k."
I rehearsed conversations in the shower. Built entire courtroom cases for why my feelings were valid. Called witnesses. Submitted evidence. Concluded with a compelling summary. Delivered the whole thing to someone who was already scrolling Instagram.
At some point, and I cannot tell you exactly when, I just stopped.
What Stopping Looks Like
It does not look like becoming cold. That is the first thing people assume.
She stopped explaining herself. She must be difficult now. She must be one of those women who is Very Into Boundaries. She probably has a therapist and a podcast and a water bottle that says something about peace.
(I do have a therapist. The water bottle is just a water bottle.)
Stopping explaining yourself does not mean you stop communicating. It means you stop performing. Stop presenting your internal world for external approval. Stop submitting your feelings as evidence in a case that was never going to be ruled in your favour anyway.
It means when someone asks "but WHY do you feel that way" for the fourth time, you are allowed to say "I just do" and consider that a complete sentence.
The Exhausting Maths of Over-Explaining
Here is what over-explaining actually costs you.
You spend twenty minutes crafting the perfect message explaining why you cannot make it to something. You get a one word reply. You spend another ten minutes analysing the one word reply. You send a follow up to clarify the first message. They reply with a slightly longer word. You feel briefly better. Then worse. Then you eat something.
Meanwhile nothing changed. You still were not going. They were still mildly annoyed or completely unbothered, you were never sure which. And you have spent half an afternoon managing a situation that did not require managing.
The explanation did not help. It never does, really. Either the person understands or they do not, and which one it is tends to have very little to do with how well you explained it.
What You Actually Owe People
A genuine attempt at communication when it matters. Honesty when asked for it. Basic human decency.
Not a dissertation. Not a defence. Not a full account of your internal reasoning process delivered in real time while apologising for having internal reasoning in the first place.
"No, I can't make it" is a complete sentence. "I changed my mind" is a complete sentence. "I'm not okay but I don't want to talk about it" is a complete sentence. "I just need some time" is a complete sentence. “No” is a complete sentence.
None of these require footnotes.
The Quiet That Follows
When you stop explaining, something interesting happens.
It is quiet for a bit. Uncomfortable quiet. The kind where you have sent a short answer and you are sitting with the urge to follow it up with three paragraphs of context and you are choosing, actively, not to.
And then.
You start to hear yourself. What you actually think. What you actually want. What you would decide if you were not busy running it past everyone else first.
That part is worth it. That part is the whole point.
You stopped explaining yourself.
Good.
Where have you been over-explaining when a shorter answer would have been the truer one?
rise · believe · fly 🪶
From the Ashes She is for the woman in the middle of it. Not after. If this found you today, you are exactly where you are supposed to be.