(& Other Ways I Try to Fix the Universe Before Lunch)

Empaths don’t fall in love – they fall into people.” -Unknown

 

My Interpretation: It is not romance, it is rescue. We do not fall for charm; we fall for potential. We meet someone’s pain & call it connection because our brains mistake familiar for safe. We overextend, over-give, & overwrite ourselves in the name of understanding them. But love is not CPR. It should breathe with you, not through you. The lesson? Stop handing out oxygen masks while you are still gasping for air.

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The Emotional Paramedic Complex

There is this weird, slightly delusional part of me that thinks I can heal everyone.

Not professionally.

Not even intentionally.

Just… instinctively.

 

Someone says, “I am fine,”

& I am already halfway through writing their –

unsent apology letter to their inner child.

I wish I were kidding.

 

You tell me about your childhood trauma once,

& suddenly I am rearranging the entire emotional

IKEA furniture of your life in my head,

trying to make it more functional.

 

Some people flirt by tossing their hair or sending thirst traps.

I flirt by saying, “Tell me about your mom.”

Which, if we are honest, might be worse.

 

It is this INFJ-core tendency –

to over-feel,

over-care,

over-function –

like a one-woman emotional paramedic team.

There is no boundary between

“I want to understand you” &

“I will rebuild your soul using nothing but empathy, sarcasm, & emotional caffeine.”

 

The result?

I end up carrying emotional furniture that does not belong in my house.

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My Toxic Trait: Thinking I am the Universe’s Customer Service Rep

My brain genuinely believes I can fix everything before lunch.

World hunger? On it.

Your unresolved daddy issues? Let me just grab my clipboard.

The guy at Starbucks who looked sad while steaming milk? I will be thinking about him for three to five business days.

 

I keep editing other people’s storylines while mine is still mid-chapter.

But the universe did not ask me to be its customer service representative –

it just asked me to survive.

& that is harder than it looks some days.

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The Allure of the Broken Ones

You know what is dangerous?

When you confuse familiar pain for chemistry.

When someone’s emotional chaos feels like home because you grew up in it.

That is not attraction – that is recognition.

 

I keep mistaking “we understand each other’s darkness” for

“We belong together.”

It is comforting, in a way.

But comfort does not always equal safety – sometimes it is just déjà vu dressed like destiny.

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If Loving Is a Superpower, Mine Needs Boundaries

Empathy without limits becomes self-erasure.

& I have realized that saving everyone else is just another way of avoiding myself.

It feels noble, sure – until you are the one bleeding & no one even noticed you fell.

 

So, I am learning to sit still.

To not fix.

To not absorb.

To not make someone’s wounds my home project.

If the universe wants fixing, it can submit a support ticket.

I am officially on break.

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The End (for Now)

I do not flirt – I connect too deeply, too fast, with people who speak fluent ache.

& I do not fix the universe – I just keep trying because it feels safer than letting it fall apart again.

 

But maybe the lesson is this:

I am not supposed to save everyone.

I am just supposed to save myself –

& trust that the right ones will meet me there,

are already doing the same.

Xoxo ♡