Land, Love, and French Fries

Everything I’m writing does not intend to harm. It is not an exposé. It is a mirror. A reckoning. A confession. It is how I’ve come to honor the version of me who didn’t yet know how to love herself. Because self-sabotage doesn’t just live inside you. It also chooses the people who confirm your unworthiness.

When you don’t believe you deserve safety, you will keep calling danger home. When you mistake punishment for passion, you will keep interpreting chaos as care. This is not a story about them. This is a story about who I was before I changed. And instead of blaming them, I turned inward. What do I need to heal so I no longer accept less than I deserve? What kind of woman do I want to be? How do I want to be cherished? And just as important, what am I willing to offer in return? That is the soil from which this story grows.

Once, someone paid for a plane to spell my name in the sky. Sweet, I guess. But I’m not the only Pearl in the world. Spell my whole name if you mean it. Kidding aside, I’ve never been here to be won. And somewhere between the applause and the wilted flowers, I realized: I was never being cherished. I was being claimed as a trophy. He didn’t do it to see me. He did it to be seen with me. Not to honor me, but to parade me.

It wasn’t love. It was performance. And slowly, it became less about devotion and more about obligation. To stay. To play the part. To receive the gestures as if they were truth. I was never the audience. I was the proof. I was just a receipt after being consumed.

Once, someone sang for me in front of a crowd, guitar in hand, his voice trembling with practiced sincerity. My friends thought it was romantic. A few even cried. But I wanted to disappear. I didn’t feel chosen. I felt cornered. It wasn’t a tribute. It was a transaction.

His voice didn’t carry my name with tenderness; it carried his need to be admired. And I became the stage. The proof of how grand he could be. How brave. How in love. Except it wasn’t love—it was leverage. He didn’t sing to reach me. He sang to raise himself in the eyes of others. And I only felt exposed. I felt used.

The same person once yelled at me in public for more than an hour. His voice sharp, his presence towering, while I stood there, crying in the middle of a mall. My chest was tight with confusion, my dignity unraveling with each word he spat. I remember the looks of strangers, eyes wide with concern, bodies shifting closer as if ready to step between us. That moment stripped the music away. There was no melody in his rage. Only control. Only humiliation. And suddenly, all the flowers, all the songs, all the carefully curated affection… meant nothing.

Because if love makes you feel unsafe in the middle of a crowd, it is not love. It is performance turned punishment.

Once, someone sent me flowers every month. Wrapped in brown paper or sometimes in expensive boxes, always tied in ribbon, always delivered on time, like clockwork, like devotion was a subscription. At first, I thought it was sweet. Predictable, yes, but sweet. Until the fifth bouquet arrived and I realized… it felt less like affection, more like collateral. Like proof of loyalty. Payment in petals. Something to point to and say, “See? I’m trying.”

But I am not a grotto. I am not a shrine. You do not lay down offerings at my feet just to wish for something back, like an expected prayer without reverence. You do not throw petals into me like I am a wishing well, hoping beauty will excuse the absence of truth. What you bring to me should not be performative, it should be participative. Mutual. Real.

But what no one else saw was this: the same man who sent the flowers once threw a full luggage at me. In rage. In silence. In punishment. And immediately after, before the echo of that violence even left the room, he asked me to marry him. As if a ring would rewrite the moment. As if a proposal could whitewash the bruise of what had just happened. As if grand gestures could substitute for genuine change.

It didn’t prove his love. It proved his desperation to rewrite the story, with himself still as the hero. And it worked. He had spent months, years—curating a character so beloved, so romantic, so generous. He posted me like I was his victory. Captioned me with long, tender messages. Gave gifts publicly. Loved me performatively.

So when I finally spoke up about the harm, no one believed me. Not even my friends. At least not at first. That’s how deeply he authored the narrative. He didn’t just manipulate me… he manipulated everyone’s belief about what he was capable of.

The flowers didn’t soften the pain. They disguised it. Covered it in petals and paper. Masked the ache in the costume of romance. He wasn’t choosing me… he was choosing the illusion of himself as a good man. And it began to feel like an obligation to stay, not a devotion.

But grief can be a great revealer. It shows you what was hollow by letting it echo. And when the echo fades, you’re left with a question: What do I actually want to grow from here?

Land? I already carry land, in my blood. In the language of survival. In the prayers whispered by women who walked barefoot through harvest and heartbreak. Land was handed to me not with keys, but with calloused palms and bent backs. I carry it in memory. In marrow. In the way I know how to nurture without asking for thanks. So no, I am not waiting to be given anything. I have inherited enough.

What I need now is not possession, but participation. A life built beside someone, not over them. Something living. Shared. Tended to like a promise. Like a potato farm, maybe... so we can laugh while planting, and fight over how to season the fries. Because I don’t want land as power. I want land as proof that we are still feeding something real. Something soft. Something sacred.

And if I’m being honest, raw, unguarded, maybe even a little childish...fried potatoes are just my favorite. They're not fancy, but they’re enough. Because they remind me that nourishment doesn’t have to arrive with applause. Sometimes, it arrives golden and crisp, in silence, handed to you fully.

That’s the kind of life I want. Not one you build to be admired. But one you share with your hands full. Greasy. Honest. Laughing.

The kind where love stays long enough to cook, and to eat what it helped grow.

Flowers? Sure. I like them. Their softness. Their scent. Their fleeting beauty. But I don’t need them every month. I am not a grotto, not a shrine. I do not require decoration to feel worthy. I do not need offerings. If you must spend, spend on food with my friends. Feed what matters. Laughter at a shared table. Warm rice passed hand to hand. That’s the kind of bouquet I understand. Not petals in a vase, but presence in a room. Not romance on schedule, but love that lives in practice.

Because I’ve learned: Commitment is not a title you wear. Not a public promise wrapped in ribbon. It is the quiet, constant tending of a thing you both believe in. It is showing up, not just in celebration, but in the unseen hours. It is choosing each other without audience. Not one person proving, not one person pulling, but both returning to the soil, over and over, to grow something that lasts. That’s all I want now. Not a love that blooms for display, but a garden, or a farm, or an orchard that feeds me, not just literally but in spirit. Not in performance. But in practice. In breath. In witness. In real, deliberate love.

It doesn’t arrive with noise. It arrives in the kitchen. Soft and slow, like early light on a worn floor. Because somewhere between feeding the body and holding the heart, love learns to become a shelter.

And maybe that’s how you’ll know. Not from what they promise, but from what they quietly prepare. From how they stay, long after the hunger is gone.

| And if ever I am to be chosen again, let it be by someone who is hungry not to impress me, but to know me—someone who brings not petals, but presence, not promises, but practice, and sits beside me, empty-handed and honest, saying only, “I see you. And I’m staying.”