Hey Kaleigh!

Author: Kaleigh Dugan

  • Let Them Wonder About You

    Image from Jobeth McElhanon on Pinterest

    There is a quiet kind of power in not having to explain yourself.

    Not everything that happens in your life demands a social media post to justify it. You aren’t indebted to anyone. Sometimes, the most magnetic thing you can do is to leave room for some silence. Hold yourself back, and let them wonder.

    Let them wonder why you controlled the urge to text back immediately.

    Let them wonder why your selfies hit different now.

    Let them wonder why your laugh feels lighter, like you stopped carrying some heavy burden.

    Let them wonder why you’re glowing.

    Reclaim the driver’s seat in your own journey.

    My mom explains everything. She will describe why she bought a certain brand of paper towels like she is trying to sway an apprehensive jury. She will apologize for trying new recipes, even if everyone adores it. I love her more than words can convey, but watching her justify every small choice like someone is going to question her hurts me. I’ve inherited this trait, too.

    It makes me realize how women are taught that being misunderstood is dangerous. That silence equals guilt. That mystery is selfish.

    We are trained to narrate everything. To perform. To clear up anything that makes us seem complicated. But some things are just for you. Some chapters are meant to be lived, not illustrated through a live-stream.

    Mystery isn’t coyness. It’s about clarity. It’s about what deserves to be shared, and what doesn’t. It is knowing that your evolution is sacred, and doesn’t require an audience.

    In college, I was bullied out of a sorority that I loved by someone I thought was a friend. Not in that obvious way with locker shoves and “you can’t sit with us.” It started quietly with eye rolls when I spoke, with group meetings that I wasn’t part of, and jokes about my eating disorder. When I made the decision to leave, I started narrating myself constantly. Not in a “woe is me” sense, but I thought if I explained myself enough, I could change the way they saw me. But I couldn’t.

    It took me a while to realize: over-explaining is like reopening a wound. You can’t keep hurting yourself hoping someone finally sees how deep the wound goes.

    Sometimes you outgrow the need to prove you’re okay. You just are. And that implicit, but wholehearted confidence? It invites people to lean in. Dig deeper. Re-read your captions. Explore signs of what has changed.

    Let them.

    Because while they are working at trying to decode your silence, you are busy becoming someone you didn’t expect. 

    Let them wonder.

    You’re not meant to be understood by everyone.

  • To Those Who Have Lost Their Spark

    I hate when someone starts to dim.

    Not because they aren’t good anymore, they are. Sometimes they are sharper than ever. But something has shifted. Their sentences feel hesitant. Their rhythm is off. You can tell they are holding their breath as they are speaking. As if their life has peaked before it has truly begun.

    I once wrote about becoming the wrong version of myself. Losing your spark is what happens when you live that way for too long. You go quiet inside because the version you are performing doesn’t feel like home.

    This is for those who feel like they have gone quiet. Not out loud, but somewhere inside:

    You still show up.

    You still smile.

    You still do the work. You still say the right things. You still nod at the right time.

    But something is quieter now. Not on the outside, but inside where your spark used to live.

    Maybe it’s burnout. Maybe you’re experiencing heartbreak. Maybe it’s the slow destruction of always trying to be everything for everyone.

    Or maybe you’re just tired of explaining yourself.

    I get it. It is a canon event — one of those inevitable turning points. Full of expectations and preconceived notions. The “build your brand” formula. This blueprint can crush even the strongest voices if you let it. You don’t even know what you’re doing until you reread your own work and think: Who am I? Where did I go?

    Either way, your once-bold voice has started whispering. Waiting on the edge, and wondering if it is even welcome anymore.

    It happens gradually, and I just need to say:

    You are not broken.

    You are not dramatic.

    You are not fading.

    You do not have nothing to say.

    You are in a hazy, in-between space. An area where rest looks like withdrawal, and healing looks like a lull. That does not mean you’ve timed out. It makes you human.

    So if this is you somewhere in between animated and exhausted: I hope you find your way back. Not to content. Not to “personal gain.” But to your voice. The one that hums when everyone else sings. The one that sounds like home.

    So give yourself a break, not more pressure. Not deadlines. Stop adding things to your agenda because you feel like you should.

    Because your sparkle isn’t gone, just buried underneath too much strategy. And when you are ready, even if your voice feels shakes, let it speak again. We still want to hear you.

  • Be Someone You Care About

    Image from StockCake

    There are days I treat myself like a second thought. I push through my exhaustion like it’s proof of my strength. I dismiss my needs with a light joke. I scroll until my eyes sting, then doubt myself through my FOMO. I fear my own body, prefer anxiety over joy, dread responding to texts, and call it “self-control” or “being chill” when really I am trying to escape myself.

    Somewhere along the way, I learned how to show up for other people. To check in, remember birthdays, send “let me know if you need anything” texts and mean it. I genuinely care – just not always for myself.

    But here’s what I’m learning (slowly and awkwardly):

    It’s not enough to just be someone.

    You have to be someone you care about.

    Not in a trivial, “treat yourself” kind of way (although that can be valuable too). But in a real, reliable, honest way. The way you would care for a friend who is quietly unraveling. The way you would talk to someone you actually like.

    Ask yourself how you’re really doing, and actually wait for the answer.

    Ask, but don’t interrogate.

    You don’t have to be your best self all the time. But you should be your softest witness. And your most cherished place to land.

    So today, I am practicing.

    Caring for me like I would someone I love.

    And trying to become someone I don’t regularly abandon.

  • I’m Not Her Yet, But I’m Trying

    Image from Pexels

    There’s a version of me that I hoped I’d be by now. 

    She’s achieved so much. She’s successful. She doesn’t just know what she wants – she asks for it clearly, confidently, and without apologizing. She walks into rooms like she belongs there because she knows that she does. She explains her emotions without ending each sentence in a question mark. She doesn’t Google “how to stop crying” at 12am.

    But I’m not quite her yet.

    Instead, I’m somewhere in between. A little nervous, a little burnt out. I’ve outgrown acting like I am okay with things when I’m really not. But I still haven’t become a pro when it comes to fully trusting myself and honoring my boundaries. I am learning to be softer without being smaller, learning to want things out loud. But some days, I don’t even know what I want. Only what I don’t want.

    So I am asking:

    How did you learn to have some more faith in yourself?

    How did you accept the real version of you over something you were performing? What helped you loosen up?

    I don’t need some ten-step plan. Honestly, I’d prefer an easy fix. Just some simple thoughts. The kind you share over lunch with your friends, chatting like time doesn’t matter.

    Because maybe none of us have it all figured out.

    And maybe that’s okay, too.

  • Be Yourself: Everyone Else is Taken

    Image from Pexels

    I used to think “being myself” meant being the most likeable version of me.

    The girl who recognized the right references. Who said the right things at the right time. Who could adapt her vibe depending on who was in the room. She wasn’t fake necessarily, just tailored and practiced. Curated. Processed, like an Instagram post that only needed one little fix.

    But somewhere along the way, the performance became exhausting.

    Trying to be chill when I am spiraling. Acting unfazed when I care way too much. Grinning and acting fine when I am actually crumbling inside. And I began to wonder: If I am not even allowing me to be me…who is all this for?

    It is easy to say “be yourself.” It is tough to actually do it. Because what if people don’t like the real you? What if the real you is too much? Or not enough? Or too eccentric, or nutty, or loud, or boring, or soft in places you were told to be hard?

    But here is the thing I am gently learning: being someone else does not protect you from rejection. It just assures you’ll feel alone even when you’re accepted.

    The right people will never ask you to shrink. They won’t flinch when you get real. They won’t back away from your softness. They will take you in. They’ll reflect it back.

    Being yourself isn’t about being impeccable. It is about showing up, blemished and all. It is about reclaiming whole parts of you that you used to hide because someone once made you feel like they were bizarre.

    And maybe it’s not even about becoming anyone new.

    Maybe it is about fully remembering who you were before society told you who to be.

    Because everyone else is already taken. And honestly? You are already incredible as you are.

  • Don’t Waste Time Becoming The Wrong Version of You

    There’s a version of me I spent years trying to grow into.

    She was always a little more polished. A  little more free. A little more “cool girl in the corner” than I ever was.

    She didn’t cry watching SPCA commercials.

    She didn’t double text.

    She knew how to carve her eyebrows and always said “thank you” instead of “sorry.”

    She was every Pinterest mood board I’ve ever saved, all vanilla girl aesthetic and emotional modesty.

    But she wasn’t me.

    I think we all do this. We frame ourselves out of what we think will be loved. We stitch ourselves together with bits of admiration from strangers, Vogue covers, characters in movies who never seem to need anyone. We go over our personalities like scripts. We examine our softness so we can be more palatable. More preferential.

    And then one day, you look up and realize: 

    You don’t even like the girl you became.

    … 

    I have learned that becoming isn’t always progress. Sometimes it’s performance. Sometimes it’s angst, disguised as glow serum and curated playlists.

    And while reinvention can be healing, becoming the false version of you – the one built from pressure, not authenticity – is utterly exhausting. You will spend all your energy trying to maintain a self that was never viable in the first place.

    So now, I’m doing this instead:

    Becoming the version of me that cries when something upsets her. Who is clingy sometimes and calm sometimes and genuine all the time. Who absolutely needs people. Who completely forgives herself. Who has roots, not just polish.

    The realest version of me may not be the most admired, but she is the one I can absolutely live with. 

    And that matters more.

  • When You Find the Right One

    Image by StockCake

    I like to believe that there is a kind of quiet that comes with finding the right person. That something inside of you eases. Not because you have changed, but because you finally feel safe enough not to.

    There is no guard up. No calculated charm, no pretending to be chill, more desirable, more put together than you actually are. Like your nervous system finally soothes. Like you are no longer auditioning for love like it’s some kind of role. Things are stable, and you’re just living in it. There is no need to rehearse your reactions, no compulsion to overanalyze texts like they are part of some sacred manuscript. You just are. And somehow, that is enough. Because the right one will just listen. Not just to your words, but to the silences that fall between them.

    I used to be preoccupied with this idea that I needed to find the “right one” and have it feel like some firework display. Something colossal and cinematic. I thought of a soundtrack playing in the background, a perfect line delivered under perfect lighting (probably delivered by Hugh Grant, if we’re being honest). But real love is generally quieter than that. It is largely found in the way someone remembers how you take your coffee. In the hand that finds yours without hesitation. In the way they see the version of you that even you are still learning to love.

    The right one doesn’t anchor you. They don’t complete you. They don’t free you from yourself. But they see you. They compliment you. They hold space for the chaos and the calm. And they love you in that space. They get that growth isn’t always pretty, that you can be a super fun masterpiece and a work-in-progress at the same time.

    I imagine it feels like a little rest. Like the right one makes you feel new again. Not in an unusual way, but in the sense that you are finally safe enough to play. To be comfortable. To be easy-going. To be held, to be known without having to clarify every piece of yourself.

    And no, I haven’t found it yet. I don’t know if soulmates exist. And I don’t yet know what it feels like when someone makes your life feel less like a performance and more like a place to rest.

    But I am hoping that this is real, and that maybe it is out there for me.

    I want to believe that the kind of love that makes you feel radiant is not just for other people. That one day, someone will love me in a way that doesn’t feel like a risk. Like something that was everlastingly meant to happen in time.

    And until then, I will keep choosing myself hopefully. 

    Because if I do meet the right one, he won’t complete me. He will just know that I was whole all along.

  • I Want to Grow Up (And Stay This Young Forever)

    There is something quietly painful about maturing.

    I want to age into someone who knows what wine to bring to dinner parties. Who answers emails without dread, who has a skincare routine that she doesn’t abandon halfway through the week. I yearn to be a woman who can say things like, “Let’s circle back” and actually mean it. A woman who lives in breathable linen, drinks iced lavender lattes, and has a therapist on speed dial, just because.

    But I also want to stay this young forever. This version of me who still cries in dressing rooms with my mom waiting outside. Who believes in signs from the universe and makes wishes at 11:11. Who still plays songs from her middle school playlist, reviews old text messages, and tries to analyze new texts like they were written in a secret language.

    I think I want both.

    To grow up without growing out of the softness. To hold onto the messiness of the now: the 12am spirals, the apprehensiveness, the late-night french fries, the “should I text him?” debates with new friends made in a bathroom. The hope. The desire. The infinite versions of who I could become.

    No one really warns you about this contradiction. How growing up feels less like climbing a ladder and more like shapeshifting and constantly rearranging yourself to fit spaces you are still learning to desire. There is potential in that. And loss, too.

    I guess growing up means learning how to carry yourself, even when you’re scared. But staying young? That’s about remembering why you started carrying anything. It’s about your early days.

    So maybe I’ll be both. 

    I’ll grow up, and stay this young forever.

  • I’m Afraid I’ll Fall in Love One Day

    Photo by Getty Images

    There’s a version of me. Quiet. Unguarded. Entirely unprepared. I imagine her quite literally stumbling into the love of her life the way you trip over a crack in the sidewalk: clumsily but not hard enough to actually get hurt. 

    Not the The Bachelor kind of love. Not the kind I have rehearsed in my head, with Instagram-filtered kisses and totally blush-worthy glances. I mean the kind that absolutely rearranges you. The one that truly peels you back layer by layer and doesn’t flinch at what it finds.

    And that is what genuinely scares me.

    For as easy going as I claim to be, I also like to be in control. Especially when it comes to things I am afraid of. I like certainty and knowing how I will come across. I like knowing what I will say and what version of me I am promoting. I have spent so much time developing myself as that girl: the pop-culturally aware one, the creative one, the vulnerable one. So I am afraid that falling in love will wreck her.

    Because real love doesn’t always flatter you. Sometimes it exposes you. It reminds you of your oldest fears. It shows you how quickly your walls can crumble when someone finds the crack in your foundation. Sometimes it betrays you. I am afraid that falling in love will hurt.

    And I don’t know if I am ready for that.

    Not in the dramatic, movie-ending kind of way. In a silent way. A slow unraveling. The moments when you’re unsure he means what he says. Unsure if there is an ulterior motive. The waiting for words or acts that never come. The wishing he would give you flowers just one time, and giving him your body anyway.

    I worry that I will lose myself. That I will love someone so much that I will start dimming my sparkle to make sure he glows too. I worry that I will get too soft in ways that will make me forget how I fought to become this version of myself.

    But here is the thing: maybe love does not have to crush you. Maybe it just asks you to ease up your grip. 

    To let someone see the version of you that isn’t all figured out yet. To let them join you on your journey.

    Maybe falling in love won’t be the end of me. Maybe it will be the beginning of something that I can’t control, but desperately need.

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  • Love What Makes You You

    There was a time when I believed self-love meant writing affirmations on a mirror or reciting mantras until they rang true. And while there may be some benefit to this, I’ve learned that loving yourself isn’t always some glowing montage with soft lighting and background music. Sometimes, it’s learning to sit with the weird, the heavy, the cringe, the complicated parts of yourself, and not awkwardly flinch.

    Loving what makes you you is not always graceful. Sometimes it’s a very inelegant laugh. It’s realizing you overthink texts for too long but send them anyway. It is wearing that outfit that makes you feel powerful, even if no one else “gets” it. It is embracing your obsession with reality TV, your niche hyperfixations, your delicate middle and sharp edges.

    It’s easy to want to flatten yourself into someone less complicated, more polished. Social media easily influences us to manage ourselves as a perfectly curated brand. To pick a single aesthetic and stay with it. But you contain multitudes. You can be someone who cries over that one strand of Zayn’s hair at the 2014 AMAs and still love classic poetry. You can be the kind of person who appreciates a color coded planner by day and a rerun of Gypsy Sisters by night.

    You are allowed to recognize yourself in all of it.

    The truth is, the things we regularly try to downplay or hide — our quirks, our past lapses in judgement, our passions that don’t always make sense to others — are the exact things that make us remarkable. They are what make us rare. And being rare, unique, is so much better than being perfect.

    So here is your gentle reminder: You do not need to diminish your quirks to be loved. You do not need to reduce your edges to be accepted. You are not too much or not enough. You are exactly the right amount of you.

    And you are someone worth loving.