it's an odd thing, feeling such a fierce current of kindness for someone else's mistake, while simultaneously my stomach clenches with a bitter recognition for all the times i didn't give that to myself. this familiar internal pressure, always pushing, felt like a kind of BETRAYAL, that i could give it out so freely but still struggled to turn it inward. the muscles in my jaw just… release, a slow, surprising slackening, like i'd been clenching them for years without noticing, just from watching myself be kind.